Wood: Budget proposal ‘shocking’
Humboldt County to be allocated $13.8M in relief
The state assembly representative for the North Coast said Friday that California’s upcoming budget hits will significantly impact Humboldt County, but both the assembly and state senate will push back on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announced fiscal cutbacks.
The cuts are intended to make up for a roughly $54 billion deficit expected to hit California as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Newsom said Thursday a federal aid package worth around $1 trillion would help ease the blow.
Assemblymember Jim Wood said he had already been expecting severe cuts, but called the governor’s actual proposal “frankly shocking.”
“Our already stressed health care system is going to be stretched even thinner than it already was,” Wood said. “The pandemic has made it really stressful for hospitals and clinics; the cuts are only going to exacerbate that.”
Both California’s assembly and senate will put together counter-proposals, Wood said.
Included in the budget is aid for individual counties in California, among which Humboldt County will receive around 13.8 million.
“It sounds like a lot of money,” Wood said, “but the response to (the pandemic) has been very expensive, and the longer it goes, the more costly it gets. I don’t believe these allocations, when this crisis is over, will make counties whole again.”
While there are cuts across the board, Wood said state-funded health care programs, including those intended to help senior citizens, will be negatively impacted.
In addition to public health shortfalls, educational funding will suffer, warned Rep. Jared Huffman, the North Coast’s congressman. “If we’re going to be able to begin gradually and safely reopening the economy, you really need the schools to be safe,” Huffman told the Times-Standard. “All across the country, states are in the process of dramatically slashing school budgets.”
Federal funding is also expected to be dry, since Humboldt County, with a population of less than 500,000, is too small to be eligible for immediate Coronavirus Relief Fund moneys.
Newsom’s budget outlook includes a 10% pay cut for more than 233,000 state workers, which would save about $2.8 billion. Firefighters and health care workers would be among those taking pay cuts.
Public sector labor unions intend to push back against wage cuts, as well as any staff reductions and furloughs. In a video released Thursday, Yvonne R. Walker, the president of SEIU Local 1000, urged workers to collectively bargain for their wages to be protected.
“We’re going to be looking… for ideas for cost savings that we can then put forward and try to whittle this down,” Walker said.
Wood emphasized the severity of the cuts but emphasized that they are not final — summer tax receipts are still on the way.
“As bad as it looks, my hope is that things look better once that happens,” Wood said. “But, right now, the breadth and depth of the cuts are pretty devastating.”