County’s check-shrinking letter: Local legislators respond

State Assemblymember Lori Saldana and State Senator Christine Kehoe called me today to discuss the letter the county sent out to recipients of certain kinds of state assistance. As I wrote yesterday, the county sent about 35,000 letters to inform people that they will be reducing state-aid recipients’ checks until the state passes a budget. The letter urged county residents to call sate legislators to get a budget passed.

Kehoe first wanted to make the point that the Legislature hopes to vote on a budget possibly as soon as tomorrow. Then she said:

“I understand why the county wants to let the clients know why they may be suffering a smaller check in the next month. On the other hand, I think we should be working on this together. I think it’s a little bit of a conflict for the county to be urging the state to make sure that all the county programs are fully reimbursed and kept whole. But they are opposed to us raising taxes—the letter didn’t address that. It would be more productive if the cities and the state work together to resolve this budget crisis.

“It’s too bad that the people who need these programs—which are children, the elderly, the ill and the disabled—are the ones who are gong to bear the brunt of the budget crisis.”

Assemblymember Saldana is furious with the County Board of Supervisors over the letter.

“It’s just absurd to panic people and put more anxiety into people’s lives when they’re already on the edge with the economy as it is. I think [the county supervisors] are feeding into the blame frenzy. These are people who have no effective working relationship with the legislators in Sacramento. I have met with them in other settings and they brought up these complaints, and I’ve offered, along with Senator [Denise] Ducheny, to meet and discuss alternatives, and they’ve never taken us up on those.

“Instead they came to Sacramento yesterday to hold a news conference to fan the flames of public upset. How much money did they spend not to work on solutions but to blame us for a global economic slow down? They didn’t come to the building, they didn’t sit down and say, ‘How can we solve this?’ It’s just threats and accusations.

“If the county would spend more money on direct assistance then them traveling around the state and filing lawsuits, they might help more people.”

I’m supposed to speak with the chair of the county Board of Supervisors, Dianne Jacob, later today.