The Golden State is not shining quite as brightly these days. If you live in California, as I do, you would have to be working very hard these days to avoid hearing news about the state’s budget woes and the dramatic and disheartening scenarios that have proposed in an effort to alleviate our deep financial crisis. With the proposed budget only days away from being signed by the governor, we will soon be faced with drastic reductions or the complete elimination of many services and programs, a number of which directly impact young children and families. Some of the most significant reductions include:

• Reduces state funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Healthy Families) by $124 million in 2009-10. This program stopped enrolling new children in July 2009 and will soon begin dropping eligible children from the program, placing hundreds of thousands of children at risk of losing their health coverage.

• Elimination of the School Age Community Child Care (Latchkey) program in August 2009. This program provided comprehensive afterschool and before-school care for children through the California Department of Education.

• Significant changes to CalWORKs Program effective in 2011.

• Continuation of furlough days for state employees, including employees of Regional Centers who provide support to adults and children with disabilities.

(For more details on the California State Budget and what it means for its citizens, check out the California Budget Project website at www.cbp.org. It provides a great deal of useful and accessible information for those of us who do not want to scour the endless pages of budgetary submissions on the CA State website! And really, not many of us have the time, energy or interest in doing that!)

And, while there is no disagreement that the budget problems needed to be managed, with massive cuts coming from education and developmental services, public transportation, children’s health insurance programs and in-home support services, the next California budget seems to be setting the stage for some concerning long-term consequences. A recent article in the New York Times summed it up by stating, “the California dream is, for now, delayed.” (To read the article in its entirety, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/us/22calif.html)

I have lived in California for most of my life and I have often felt great pride and love for the place I call home. California has long been a state of great innovation and leadership, a state that welcomes a great range and diversity of people, and supported those individuals with programs and educational systems that were among the best in the nation. But our state has struggled to manage itself as it has grown and changed over the past twenty years. Priorities have been set and reset, funding for programs and new initiatives has been promised and withdrawn, and California’s citizens are now having to grapple with the realities and our ideals and realizing that these two things are increasingly far apart from one another I am saddened by the budgetary choices that are being made and I am worried about the immediate and long-term impact of such significant cuts to the programs and systems that support those living in this state, especially those with the greatest needs.