Sacramento County's budget cuts could hit social services hardest

Just weeks ago, Sacramento County Supervisor Roger Dickinson stood outside Inderkum High School's attendance center telling the media that it – and programs like it – is critical to combating gang violence.

Today, county funding for the attendance/counseling center is on the chopping block.

The program has plenty of company. From perinatal care to gang units to senior services, a wide swath of programs funded by the county may get whacked by county supervisors.

Faced with slowing sales and property tax revenues, the county's budget proposes $67.9 million in cuts.

The plan also calls on dipping into more than $55 million in reserves to solve a projected $123.7 million deficit.

Public testimony on the budget begins today. The new budget year starts July 1.

Board members are expecting a full house as the sheriff and others fight to restore targeted programs. The Sheriff's Department is facing a $5 million cut to its $360 million budget.

Except for county services that generate their own funds, the budget cuts will be felt across the county – but not all cuts are equal. The county's social service programs face far deeper cuts than any other area of the county's $5.24 billion budget. Approximately $3 of every $4 being cut come from county social safety net programs.

If the Probation Department is taken into account, cuts to the Countywide Service Agency amount to nearly 86 percent of the proposed cuts.

Monday morning, Monique Goode, 18, and her 10-month-old son, Jaylen, were among half a dozen young families waiting for care at the Oak Park Health Center, one of three county clinics to be shut down under the proposed budget.

A stack of paper at the front counter detailed the glum news, but Goode, who had an immunization appointment for Jaylen, hadn't seen it yet.

"I don't think they should close it down," Goode said after learning the news. "There are way too many people that come out here."

The clinic, at 3415 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., provides pediatric health care, family planning and public health services. It served 3,900 people last year.

To cut roughly $3 million from the county's health program, the plan also calls for closing the Northeast Health Center, 7805 Auburn Blvd.; and Capital Health Clinic, 1500 C St.

The county believes that many of the affected clients can be served by other programs or by one of the four clinics that will remain open. But Dr. Keith Andrews, who administers county clinics, said some clients would end up going to area emergency rooms.

"Many of our patients have transportation barriers," Andrews said.

He added that longer lines will keep others away.

Fliers on the clinic walls advertize the Youthworks after-school program and summer camp. Nearly 250 young people a year sign up for its tutoring, mentoring and leadership training.

But Youthworks, too, could end up as a budget casualty.

Joe Ramos, a program coordinator, said the program reaches Oak Park and south area youths.

"Some of them have never been to Folsom Lake. Some of them have never been to the snow. We are opening up new worlds," Ramos said.

The proposed budget wouldn't kill the attendance center at Inderkum High School in Natomas, but it would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the program, said Tera Diggs, supervisor of prevention and intervention for Natomas Unified School District.

Modeled after a successful program at Luther Burbank High School, the attendance center takes kids caught skipping school and tries to solve the problem at the root. A county employee on the center staff links students and their families with available public services. The community-based counselor would stay on.

"We're devastated," Diggs said. "We'll have to get creative how to go on without (the county employee.)"

County Executive Terry Schutten in an interview late last month said that the no-frills proposed budget reflects the supervisors' view that after state mandates, law enforcement is the next priority.

"We are going back to the basics," Schutten said. "We can't afford the extra right now."

Oak Park activist Rhonda Erwin sees it differently. For years, she has pleaded with the board to fund intervention programs.

The fight will be more difficult this year. She said the county needs to provide for law enforcement but not to the point that important community programs die as a result.

"We are continuously giving to the greedy and not the needy," Erwin said. "We have supervisors who are trying to make friends, rather than balance the budget."

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