By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Cut, but not eliminated. That’s what might constitute a victory cry at the completion of this year’s legislative session in Olympia. In order to come up with more than $4 billion to fill a roughly $9 billion budget hole — the remainder was secured through one-time allocations and federal money — legislators faced tough decisions and a budget written by Gov. Christine Gregoire that would have all but eliminated social service programs that assist people at the bottom of the economic ladder.
“At this particular juncture in the state’s history, and with a $9 billion deficit, for the Jewish community key programs were saved mostly intact,” said Zach Carstensen, director of government affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Carstensen spent the session in Olympia lobbying on behalf of local Jewish social service organizations.
“There were a lot of successes. Even in reductions we can look to successes,” he noted. “But make no mistake about it, there are going to be people who are going to be adversely affected by this budget.”
Where Carstensen and a wide array of social service lobbyists spent the bulk of their efforts was in saving the General Assistance–Unemployable program, a $400 million line item that serves as a temporary lifeline for people unable to work, many of them veterans awaiting eligibility for social security benefits, in the form of a $339 monthly stipend. The governor had completely eliminated GA-U in her preliminary budget. The final budget resulted in a cut of $24.8 million from the program, which Carstensen called “a huge victory.”
In addition, lawmakers were able to revisit the way GA-U is administered. That includes increased facilitators from the federally funded Supplemental Security Income program to help move GA-U clients to the federal rolls, as well as programs that will enable clients to enter rehabilitation and vocational training programs to transition them back into the workforce.
But the flipside of the GA-U’s fiscal component being saved is that the health care benefit to those same people has been cut significantly, “and that’s the part that’s going to have an impact,” said Don Armstrong, director of professional services at Jewish Family Service of Greater Seattle. Armstrong visited lawmakers several times during the session to demonstrate how cuts would affect his agency’s clients.
Another cut, even before it is enacted July 1, will further exacerbate a problem that has been showing a sharp increase in demand at JFS since the beginning of the year: 43 percent slashed from the state’s Basic Health Plan, which provides health insurance for children in low- and middle-income families.
“That program has been savaged by the budget,” Carstensen said.
As many as 40,000 children could lose coverage as a result. JFS has been trying to reactively address the issue.
“We looked at our budget and added an additional amount of money…for direct financial assistance to help people who are dealing with healthcare reductions,” Armstrong said.
The loss of nearly half that funding comes on top of increased layoffs throughout the state, which has been taxing JFS’ own budget. Also in higher demand has been food from the agency’s food bank, but the state actually found more money for food security that Armstrong said he hopes his agency will be able to tap into.
“We know that’s going to be a demand that’s simply going to increase over the next several months,” he said.
Another program that will be preserved, at least for the work JFS does, is in its Limited English Proficiency Pathways program, a vocational program that gives new immigrants and refugees to the area language skills necessary to more easily find employment.
“We were extremely pleased that while there have been reductions to overall funding in that area, the funds we receive will not be significantly reduced,” Armstrong said.
He said JFS would likely be able to operate the LEP Pathways program at the same level it has for the past two years.
Armstrong said he was very concerned about the cuts to funding for their year-old addiction and recovery program, particularly when paired with the cuts to the GA-U, as many substance abusers are unemployed and have very low incomes, he noted. JFS receives some state funding for the program to help with counseling and support once an addict is released from a detox clinic.
“We’re looking to see how that plays out,” Armstrong said.
The Jewish community can complete the last piece of the puzzle of cradle-to-grave services with the passage of House Bill 1926, which will allow for a Jewish hospice to be opened. But Kline Galland and Associates, which will run the hospice, had to adjust its budget for its nursing home business because of a 4 percent net cut in Medicaid payments.
“We’re obviously distressed at the level of Medicaid cuts that the state passed this year,” said Jeff Cohen, CEO of Kline Galland. “Fortunately, we had anticipated that level when we budgeted and we did make savings in non-resident–related items this year, such as employee benefits and in some of our purchasing areas.”
While 4 percent may seem like a small number, Cohen said that the agency already runs its Medicaid program at a significant loss which is offset from other areas in the agency.
“To cut 4 percent on a program that the community already subsidizes is really draconian,” Cohen said.
Carstensen said the cut could be the most negative result for the Jewish community to come out of this legislative session. Additionally, “people in adult day homes or nursing homes are no longer eligible” for Medicaid, Carstensen said. “There’s going to be [almost] no state support for health programs.”
Lauren Simonds, outgoing executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women’s Seattle section, said the budget gives poor treatment to family planning in the upcoming biennium. While her organization was part of a coalition that successfully lobbied to keep 70 family planning nursing positions from elimination, the budget “drastically reduces the state [allocation] for birth control and family planning in the second year,” Simonds said.
Ultimately, the difference between the $550 saved per woman for birth control will be offset by the $8,000 it costs per Medicaid-paid birth, costing taxpayers more, she noted.
“The numbers of women being seen in our state clinics has risen dramatically in the past year,” Simonds said, and the “ability of clinics to provide affordable birth control options is going down, so we’re going to see more pregnancies.”
Simonds also expressed disappointment that the state’s family leave act, which had been expanded but unfunded in last year’s session, was indefinitely put on hold.
So was this budget, as Gov. Gregoire has said, a responsible budget?
“At the end of the day, the Jewish community’s primary interests are mostly protected, even though there are dramatic reductions in other areas,” Carstensen said.
Still, health care and education, both areas that affect the Jewish community as much as, if not more, than anybody else in the state, bore much of the brunt of the budget cuts.
“If [college tuition] goes up 14 percent this year, and 14 percent next year,” he said, “who knows how much it’s going to cost Washington residents to go to a state school? It’s going to make people more dependent on financial aid and it’s going to create debt for students and families.”
Rep. Dan Roach (R–Bonney Lake) said in a statement that this budget was far from responsible.
“It’s a budget of backward priorities. The cuts to the most vulnerable of our state and education are deplorable. It should have funded the most important needs of our state and removed all the fluff,” he said.
Because much of the money used to fill the debt hole was from one-time allocations, Roach said the budget “ensures a deficit in the next two years which could exceed $10 billion. The failure to set the right priorities and make the difficult decisions to limit the size of government means our state will be hurting very bad in 2011, and this sets us up for huge tax increases in the not-too-distant future.”
Armstrong, of JFS, sounded a note of resignation.
“If you start with the assumption that you can’t raise revenue, they’ve probably done the most responsible thing they can do,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate that we haven’t been able to look at our entire tax structure…and figure out how to make that less regressive and less reactive to these kinds of economic downturns. We need tax reform in this state, and we really need it very badly.”
On the policy side, the Jewish community actually came out well this session. In addition to the passage of HB1926, House Bill 1498 will be more effective in keeping firearms out of the hands of people who have been involuntary committed to mental institutions for 14 days.
“This is an amazing piece of legislation,” Simonds said. It is “the first gun violence legislation in over 20 years that has passed in Washington State.”
The new law would, within three days, enter the person’s name into the national background check database as well.
“Washington wasn’t providing that information to the federal background check folks,” Carstensen said.
Senate Bill 5952, which was supported by the Jewish Federation, Equal Rights Washington, and the Washington Student Lobby, makes the malicious harassment code, also known as the hate crimes law, consistent across the spectrum of the state’s statutes.
“The labor regulations are the same as the criminal code, and the criminal code is the same as the malicious harassment provision for public schools,” Carstensen said. “Washington is now one of the few states in the country to have a hate crimes statute as far reaching as we do.”
Both the Federation and NCJW also supported SB 5688, which confer to same-sex couples the same rights as married couples.