Bee Stories (Sacramento, Stockton, Napa: crime, how much, transfer)

[NewToCA]

Kind of interesting (at least to me) when you juxtaposition these two stories from the Bee today:

To help social services such as child welfare and elder care avoid massive cuts, Darrell Steinberg wants to transfer more responsibility for those programs from the state to counties.

"If anybody thinks that we can triage our way through another chapter of the state budget, I wholeheartedly disagree," Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, said in an interview...Such change would put more control over programs' design and innovation in local hands, with the state still giving counties a portion, if not most, of the revenue to finance programs.


Steinberg calls for social services shift to California counties - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/30/2786551/realignment-xy-xyxy-xy-yx-y-x.html#storylink=omni_popular - broken link)



Of the 67 youngsters who died of abuse and neglect between 2004 and 2008, 16 were known to be medically fragile, with chronic conditions or special health needs, according to the county's Child Death Review Team.

Yet a crucial lifeline for medically fragile youngsters is about to snap.

Starting July 1, if proposed budget cuts become reality, Sacramento County will eliminate its public health nursing program for needy parents.

Since 1998 the program, in which nurses visit families with medically fragile children, has been slashed from 30 nurses to two, said county public health officer Glennah Trochet. The remaining positions now are slated to be cut.

Parents of 'medically fragile' kids likely to lose Sacramento County help - Health & Fitness - sacbee.com (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/30/2786581/parents-of-medically-fragile-kids.html#ixzz0pQkx9LaA - broken link)

[wburg]

Sounds like a big problem and a big solution--county social services are collapsing because their funding is drying up, resulting in large-scale cuts. Reworking the state social services system by providing the funds directly to the counties (cutting out the middleman) would bring those funds back, local control would allow more flexibility with their use to meet immediate local needs. It would also shrink the size of state government, and allow counties to make more decisions about how much they are taxed to provide social services. It's an interesting idea, at least.

[Think About It!]

On the first article you picked I like the idea. I think our local government should be deciding where and what to spend our money on. I'd rather see my tax money stay right here in the county rather than it get spread around the whole state first. I'd like to have a chance to really pick what I think my tax money should go towards.

[LEFT]In the process, some legislators also want to make it easier for county residents, by majority vote, to choose to tax themselves to help fund those services.

On the second article it is horrible the children that need that help are not really getting it. What can we do about that?

I think a bigger deal is why are these people who have either medical/mental problems themselves having children? I'm not saying to govern who can have kids but can't someone tell them it's not fair to their to be children for them to have kids? Or is that just as bad to say? I don't know, I think the kids lose in that situation everytime unfortunately. The article also gave an example where the lady had two children that needed a lot of medical attention. Hello! Isn't the first one enough but she had to go out and have another. I am sure that is not all she had because the article said she has trouble getting all of her kids in the car to go to the doctors office. It's just upsetting to hear how dumb people are and they leave their children with no chance.[/LEFT]

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by wburg

Sounds like a big problem and a big solution--county social services are collapsing because their funding is drying up, resulting in large-scale cuts. Reworking the state social services system by providing the funds directly to the counties (cutting out the middleman) would bring those funds back, local control would allow more flexibility with their use to meet immediate local needs. It would also shrink the size of state government, and allow counties to make more decisions about how much they are taxed to provide social services. It's an interesting idea, at least.

Ity's been done. It's called Realignment and was started with social and mental health services in 1991-92 by Wilson as a budget technique. It's almost always been inadequate to meet the needs.

Here's more: http://www.counties.org/images/users...es%20May04.pdf

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Think About It!

I think a bigger deal is why are these people who have either medical/mental problems themselves having children? I'm not saying to govern who can have kids but can't someone tell them it's not fair to their to be children for them to have kids? Or is that just as bad to say? I don't know, I think the kids lose in that situation everytime unfortunately. The article also gave an example where the lady had two children that needed a lot of medical attention. Hello! Isn't the first one enough but she had to go out and have another. I am sure that is not all she had because the article said she has trouble getting all of her kids in the car to go to the doctors office. It's just upsetting to hear how dumb people are and they leave their children with no chance.[/LEFT]

Well, there are ways to allow people to control whether they become pregnant or give birth, but there are folks who get very upset about that sort of thing, especially if the government is paying for it--even if, in the long run, it would be far, far cheaper to provide protection and prevention beforehand than years of support afterward.

curmudgeon: Interesting. I imagine there might be differences between the way Pete Wilson would implement such a plan and the way Darrell Steinberg would.

[NewToCA]

I suspect the programs get transferred from the state to the counties with marginal support funding, and once at the county level I suspect the progams go through annual cuts until they turn into the equivalent of the link concerning "public health nursing program for needy parents".

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by wburg

curmudgeon: Interesting. I imagine there might be differences between the way Pete Wilson would implement such a plan and the way Darrell Steinberg would.

True, but the funds just aren't there. CA passed Prop 13 in 1978 which limited local apportionments for education and then, in its infinite wisdom, came up with Prop 98 in 1988 which guaranteed an ever increassing level of funding for education, thus severely limiting funds that could be applied to social services and other needs.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

True, but the funds just aren't there. CA passed Prop 13 in 1978 which limited local apportionments for education and then, in its infinite wisdom, came up with Prop 98 in 1988 which guaranteed an ever increassing level of funding for education, thus severely limiting funds that could be applied to social services and other needs.

Exactly...spend all you want, but you can't make any more money, a sure recipe for disaster, unless of course you're a bank lending the state money. I once organized an archive of county mental health records from the mid-1970s, when California was switching from hospitalization to community care. Initially, things were pretty well-funded and transition from institution to community seemed to be working pretty well. Then Prop 13 came along, with fairly disastrous cuts for social services, and things started falling apart. The scary part is that the cuts counties are facing now make the cuts from Prop. 13's first implementation look fairly modest.

[Ultrarunner]

Property Tax revenue increase 30 of the last 31 years...

Education was funded locally until the Serrano v Priest decision. Serrano v. Priest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prop 13 was in large part a response to this decision.

Some districts have been very successful in getting the 2/3 vote to increase local school funding...

[Think About It!]

Originally Posted by wburg

Exactly...spend all you want, but you can't make any more money, a sure recipe for disaster, unless of course you're a bank lending the state money.

Sounds about right. <----sarcasm. I'm just sick of how crazy / dumb a lot of our politics seems to be.

I once organized an archive of county mental health records from the mid-1970s, when California was switching from hospitalization to community care. Initially, things were pretty well-funded and transition from institution to community seemed to be working pretty well. Then Prop 13 came along, with fairly disastrous cuts for social services, and things started falling apart. The scary part is that the cuts counties are facing now make the cuts from Prop. 13's first implementation look fairly modest.[/

I wonder what is a overall better idea. Is it cheaper to keep the mentally ill in a hospital, like Napa state or the old state hospital in Stockton? Is it cheaper to keep them in group housing? What gives them the best treatment / help? What is the cost to have emergency service people (police / fire / ambulance) having to deal with the mentally ill constantly? How much of our crime is attributed to the mentally ill? I would venture to say a lot of our heinious crimes are committed by mentally ill people but are they already diagnosed or have they never seeked help?

I know my parents and many others have benifited from prop 13 but is it really worth what it is costing us now?