Budget knife threatens popular state programs
Eliminating mandates for absentee ballots, aid to police and firefighters killed on duty and animal shelter rules could save $100 million. Local governments would have to pay to save them.By Michael Rothfeld
6:39 PM PDT, June 8, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento -- Linda Soubirous understood what it meant to the families of police officers and firefighters when state lawmakers ensured that they would receive health insurance for life if their loved ones were killed in the line of duty.
She was 31, with a year-old daughter and pregnant, when her husband, a Riverside County sheriff's deputy, was killed three years earlier, in 1993. Soon after, the county compounded the devastation by cutting off the family's insurance as if he had voluntarily quit his job.
Now, Soubirous is worried that other survivors will endure the same trauma if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger succeeds with a little-noticed plan to indefinitely suspend the 1996 law because of the state's budget crisis, along with about 30 others put in place over decades to address the needs of Californians. The laws, known as state mandates, put requirements on local governments and obligate the state to pay for them.
Some affect huge groups of people, such as the law that made absentee ballots available to voters, a privilege used by up to 60% of voters. But most, like the law for families of peace officers -- costing an estimated $1 million a year -- protect small, vulnerable groups.
"It just helped the families so much," said Soubirous, 47, who has two daughters . "It was beyond words to me. I know that the state is in just a huge mess and the governor has to make some terrible choices, but I just think that these families have already paid such a huge price." .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mandates9-2009jun09,0,5398115.story
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