A Toolkit for Trigger Cuts
Dear Allies,
You work tirelessly to serve California’s seniors, families and children. You’re on the frontlines of providing health and human services at a time of economic difficulty and deep budget cuts. With that in mind, our goal is to offer you clear information on what’s happening in the State Capitol that may affect you and the people you serve.
Today, we’re emailing with information on the latest chapter in the CA budget – trigger cuts.
In July, the California legislature created a mechanism in the budget for automatic cuts – or trigger cuts – if the state doesn’t collect $4 billion in additional revenue this year. There are two tiers of cuts, totaling $2.5 billion, which may go into effect in early 2012. These cuts may affect programs such as in-home supportive services, developmental disability services, and childcare funding, among others.
Keep an eye out for December 15th. By then, the state will determine if they still expect to collect $4 billion in additional revenue. If the state is on track with revenue then the trigger cuts will not go into effect.
However, if the state expects to collect only $2-3 billion of in additional revenue, a first tier of $600 million in cuts will be implemented. If the state expects only $0-2 billion in additional revenue, then $1.9 billion of additional cuts that go into effect.
At this point in time, it’s too early to know if the trigger cuts will happen. We will keep you posted with more information as it becomes available.
In the meantime, we encourage you to continue educating and informing your communities about the need for revenue solutions that will put California back on a path to prosperity and prevent the state from budgeting with trigger cuts in the future.
We suggest using the following messages – the “Four R’s of Trigger Cuts” – when discussing these issues.
- We need REVENUE SOLUTIONS, not the “wait and see” approach to budgeting of trigger cuts.
- This situation could have been prevented, but REPUBLICAN legislators blocked revenue solutions, forcing CA to budget with trigger cuts.
- RECENT CUTS already devastated the social safety net and resulted in job losses. More cuts will only make further weaken programs that CA families depend on.
- CA needs to REBUILD & RESTORE services, not make more cuts at a time of rising poverty.
We’ll share information with you in the coming weeks and months as we learn more about the potential trigger cuts. We also encourage you to like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter for updates on the trigger cuts and other important issues.
Sincerely,
The HHS Network
