Agencies that help the poor bracing for budget cuts

Ah, summer.

In what has become almost an annual ritual, California once again stumbled into a new fiscal year without a budget. State legislators are squabbling in Sacramento.

And it's high-anxiety time for many social service agencies, including those in the Bay Area that care for thousands of poor, elderly and needy members of the Jewish community.

This year, the jitters are fiercer than ever as the state faces a staggering $38 billion deficit.

"I think it's inevitable that there will be cuts. It's a question of the degree and how much human suffering it will create," said Anita Friedman, executive director of the S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children's Services.

Friedman said at least 5,000 JFCS clients alone could be hit by state funding cuts.

"It's just a very uneasy, anxious time for all of us," said Daniel Ruth, executive director of the Jewish Home in San Francisco, where more than 80 percent of the senior center's 430 residents are insured by the state's Medi-Cal health program.

Gov. Gray Davis previously had proposed slashing Medi-Cal by 15 percent, but the status of that plan is fuzzy.

Apart from considerable uncertainty about the severity of funding cuts, the state could run out of cash in the next two months if a new budget is not approved.

Last year's budget impasse dragged on for a record 76 days. This year is the seventh time in the past decade that California has missed its budget deadline.

Despite their jitters, Ruth and other providers say they are being careful to run business as usual for their clients, many of whom are frail and old. "It's not affecting the level of care or service we're providing," he stressed.

Ruth said in the past month, the center's staff has been reduced by about a dozen workers through retirements, other departures and "mutual agreement in reduction of hours." The home employs about 650 people overall and none of the departing workers was involved in direct patient care, he said.

At JFCS, officials previously had warned that a 15 percent cut in Medi-Cal funding would force them to severely reduce services at the L'Chaim Adult Day Health Center. Located on Judah Street, the four-hour, five-day-a-week program provides meals, activities and companionship to 350 elderly emigres.

"Everybody's just waiting to see what's going to happen," said Friedman. "Everybody's nervous."

In the East Bay, Ted Feldman, head of the JFCS agency there, said he, too, was carefully watching the budget wrangling in Sacramento.

Jewish Vocational Service in San Francisco just got approval for a federally funded $200,000 job training and placement grant. But the budget impasse is postponing the extension of a separate $275,000 grant for dislocated workers that runs out on Nov. 30, according to executive director Abby Snay.

Snay also worries that funding cuts to local community colleges will hamper her clients' abilities to get new job skills. "It takes a whole community to put someone else to work," she said. "I think it's important for the Jewish community to understand that our community uses public sector funds as well."

At the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in Danville, "We're definitely looking at the next 60 days cautiously, with great concern," said manager Dan Alger. Some 28 of the 60 patients in the facility's skilled nursing program are Medi-Cal recipients.

Gia Daniller, the government relations director at the Jewish Community Relations Council in San Francisco, said that even with some $2 billion in borrowed funds, the state is expected to run out of cash in August.

"Everything's very uncertain," said Daniller. "Without a budget, the money runs out. People now are scrambling, trying to figure out what happens when that happens. There really isn't a plan in place."

Bracing for the possibility of state funds being withheld because of the budget crisis, the Jewish Home has signed up for a line of credit. Ruth doesn't think he'll need to tap into that account, but if he does, "we would be able to withstand a number of months" without state reimbursements.

The Jewish Home receives about $2.3 million in Medi-Cal funding each month. Reutlinger gets about $85,000 to $90,000 monthly from the state.

The impasse and uncertainty also threaten to downgrade the state's credit rating.

But for managers of social service agencies, a bigger worry is the human toll that the budget woes may exact.

"There really isn't much of a voice in the Jewish community for poor people," said Friedman. "This budget struggle really highlights that there are thousands of people in the Jewish community who are poor -- and who will be hurt.

"This budget crisis is a wake-up call to the Jewish community that we have a lot of people who depend on us for help."