Democratic lawmakers blast Newsom’s budget proposal for lack of public health funding

Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s failure to fill requests from local public health agencies for more ongoing funding in his record-breaking $267 billion budget proposal.

The budget plan Newsom unveiled last week uses a huge surplus to steer billions in increased funding to many areas, including to expand state-funded health care to undocumented immigrants over age 60 and to add a transitional kindergarten grade in public schools.

But local public health officials cried foul when he announced the budget, arguing that for all of its proposed spending, Newsom left out their request for $200 million per year in ongoing funding for their departments.

In a Wednesday press conference, Democrats who control the health committees in both chambers of the Legislature agreed with the public health departments and vowed to push for the funding as lawmakers negotiate a final budget agreement with the governor over the next few weeks.

“It’s very disappointing,” Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Santa Rosa, said of the governor’s revised 2021-22 budget proposal. “We need resources now, there’s no question about that.”

California’s spending on public health languished for a decade leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, falling from 2.8% of total spending in 2009-10 down to 1.5% in 2019-20.

Public health advocates began requesting $200 million in ongoing funding in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The departments were already underfunded prior to the pandemic, but COVID-19 has magnified the problem, said Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento. He pointed to examples of departments forced to rely on outdated fax technology to transmit coronavirus test results.

“COVID, obviously, is a one-in-100-year event and you would expect us to be stretched, but even when we had to deal with measles in 2019 we saw local health departments and the state health department having to really extend themselves,” Pan said. “We identified all these needs before COVID, and we didn’t step up. Now is the time to step up.”

When he unveiled his revised budget plan on Friday, Newsom rejected the idea that his budget doesn’t include enough spending on public health. He pointed to one-time federal stimulus money for public health departments, as well as his proposals to give $300 million in one-time funding to public hospitals and to revamp California’s behavioral health programs.

“This is a transformative budget with historic investments across the spectrum, extraordinary investments in public health and public health systems up and down the state of California,” Newsom said.

Despite his defense of the proposal, Newsom also signaled he was open to negotiating with the Legislature over public health funding.

Members of the governor’s own party speaking out publicly on the issue signals it will indeed be part of budget negotiations. Lawmakers have until June 15 to reach agreement with Newsom on a budget framework.

Pan said he applauded the increased funding for public hospitals and behavioral health, but said that’s not a substitute for what local health departments are requesting.

Departments would use most of the money to hire more staff, said Michelle Gibbons, executive director of the County Health Executives Association of California. That would include hiring more public health nurses and disease investigators to trace outbreaks and find infected people before they spread communicable diseases to others, she said.

The money would also allow departments to expand sexually transmitted disease screenings and increase chronic disease prevention programs.

Waiting until there’s another major disease outbreak to add money to public health would be a mistake, said Flojaune Cofer, senior policy director for the group Public Health Advocates.

“You can’t wait until you’re in the midst of a crisis to prevent. You have to have the dollars in advance,” she said during the Wednesday press conference. “We’re so used to playing whack-a-mole that we don’t stop and say, ‘Is there something we can do systemically to prevent all of this?’”

During his budget presentation, Newsom said that although the state is seeing a massive $76 billion surplus, that doesn’t mean there’s enough room to fill every important budget request, particularly when it comes to requests that would increase the size of the state budget in future years.

“Surpluses can quickly give way to deficits,” Newsom said. “Budgets are certainly statements of values, but one has to prioritize. It’s not limitless.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 1:36 PM.