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Walter Park
Council Secretary
March 21, 2003
Honorable Mayor Willie L. Brown
San Francisco City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 200
San Francisco, CA
94102
Dear Mayor Brown,
Following the February 21 Mayor's Disability Council Hearing on the impacts of proposed local and state budget cuts on persons with disabilities, the Mayor's Office on Disability prepared a summary report and has made recommendations based on that testimony. We are forwarding this report for your consideration, along with its endorsement by the MDC.
People with disabilities should not have to beg to have their lives protected. And so we are not begging, but we are urging you to protect and preserve programs serving people with disabilities at all costs. Because most people with disabilities are not able to work full time and by and large have low incomes, more than any other group, we must rely on public health and human service programs and subsidies.
The disability community knows perhaps better than most that we are in perilous economic times. Indeed, in recent years, it is the disability community that has already borne much of the brunt of the post 911 economy -- from lost jobs, to critical monies being sidetracked from social programs serving the disabled and frail elderly. Whereas historically, disability organizations have relied to a large extent on foundation grants and charitable giving, since September 11, these funds have dried up and in many cases, all but disappeared. As a consequence, social services agencies serving people with disabilities have no fallback when these funds are cut.
What emerged at the hearing is that the cumulative impact of proposed state and local budgetary cutbacks would damage the lives of many and take the lives of some. We all need to think not only in terms of immediate savings but also in terms of the social and human costs of such actions.
We urge the City to look for other sources of revenue and other places to cut; to balance the budget perhaps from salary savings, as well as from cutbacks in other departments which will not so severely impact the lives of those least able to afford the cost. We urge you to continue to explore creative ways of increasing and preserving revenues -- options that might include everything from cutting top city salaries to taxing large businesses.
If one thing was made clear at the hearing, it is that there needs to be some protected sources of money dedicated to programs serving people with disabilities. Such funding streams exist for public transit, the Library, children's programs, and senior programs, but not for people with disabilities. In dealing with the immediate budgetary crisis, we urge you also to think down the road, so that every time there is a budgetary crisis in the future, we will all have the security of knowing that people with disabilities will not be brought once again to the chopping block.
Our report makes three primary recommendations:
1. Create a dedicated funding stream serving people with disabilities in order to ensure that there is a baseline of equitable funding for direct services for persons with disabilities.
2 Eliminate cuts to programs with MediCaid or MediCal funding which, as noted, will increase local costs through lost matching funds, often losing $4 or $5 for each local dollar saved.
3. At DHS, use General Fund savings retained from increased state payments for IHSS salaries for services to the same disabled population.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Edward Evans, Chair
Mayor's Disability Council