Budget Update

By Rebecca Gonzales, NASW-CA Director of Government Relations and Political Affairs

On Thursday, May 14, the Governor presented the May Revise of his proposed budget. Since January, when the 2015-16 budget was introduced, an improving economy has resulted in an extra $6.7 billion. Most of this money will be allocated to the schools because of the dictates of Proposition 98 and another portion of the surplus will go to the rainy day fund according to the recently passed Proposition 2.

Along with other advocates for the poor, we were very disappointed that the Governor did not do more to combat poverty in this state. The Governor did give advocates one small victory by proposing a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), similar to the federal tax credit for the working poor. NASW is supporting two bills introduced in the Legislature this year, SB 38 (Liu) and AB 43 (Stone), which establish a state EITC. The Governor also included money in the May Revise to provide health care to immigrants who were granted deferred status under President Obama’s Executive Action (which has been delayed by the Courts). Despite these overtures, it is only the first step.

NASW will continue to push our Lobby Days bills to increase the minimum wage, to eliminate the Maximum Family Grant, and to provide healthcare for all. In addition, we will work to increase SSI/SSP and CalWORKs grants, increase child care slots, invest in subsidized preschool, increase funding for Adult Protective Services program training, and to increase funding for foster parent recruitment and retention. We are also working to give a raise to social workers who work in Foster Family Agencies, some of the lowest paid social workers in the profession.

The budget committees will close out their hearings over the next few weeks and the budget will end up in a conference committee before it must be passed by the Legislature in Mid-June. We will continue to advocate for our priorities and hope to report on some victories in a forthcoming article. As always, it important to advocate with your local state legislators on our budget priorities. The more voices we have, the more powerful our message!