Thousands of families to lose welfare benefits in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES. January 12. KAZINFORM A dramatic budget cut by California Governor Jerry Brown would end welfare benefits for 37,000 families in Los Angeles County, authorities said Tuesday; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.
Brown announced a balanced state budget on Monday that slashes state spending by 12.5 billion U.S. dollars and moves forward his plan to realign some government programs, giving cities and counties decision-making authority over certain services and programs.
The slash, designed to address California's 28-billion-dollar budget deficit, includes a proposed 1.5-billion-dollar reduction to CalWORKS, the state's welfare-to-work program.
As a result, the program will cut funding by 450 million dollars to Los Angeles County and take away benefits for 37,000 county families, according to the county's CEO, William Fujioka.
Some percentage of those families would become eligible for the county's general relief program, which relies solely on county revenues, Fujioka said.
In addition, a proposed 1.7-billion-dollar cut in medical funding would result in a loss of 120 million dollars for the county's Department of Health Services, Fujioka said.
Together with the department's existing deficit, that would create "some serious problems with our delivery of healthcare here in Los Angeles County," Fujioka said.
Moreover, the budget cut would move 13,550 felons from state prisons into county jails and shift 30,000 parolees to local supervision, according to Fujioka's estimates; Kazinform cites Xinhua.
See www.xinhuanet.com/english2010 for full version