Budget Update: How Will Young Children Be Affected by Brown’s Budget Plan?

• Cuts to Healthy Families: The state program, which provides health care coverage for low-income children in California, would be slashed by $38.5 million under the plan. Cuts would come by eliminating eye check-ups and glasses for children; increasing premiums for some families by as much as $42 a month and increasing co-payments for all children.

• Cuts to Developmental Services: The proposal also includes a $750 million reduction in developmental services. The bulk of the cuts will likely come from the 21 nonprofit regional centers that coordinate community-based services and supports for more than 240,000 children and adults with developmental disabilities. The regional centers, contracted under the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), also coordinate the state's early intervention program - called Early Start - that serves more than 25,000 infants.

• Cuts to Child Care: Although Brown's plan restores funding to the CalWORKs Stage 3 Child Care services that were eliminated by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, it also parcels out $750 million in cuts that could affect some families. Such cuts would likely require reductions in program eligibility from 75 to 60 percent of the State Median Income and in the level of child care subsidies across the board, as well as dropping eligibility for 11- and 12-year-old children.

Also included in Brown's plan are $1.9 billion in other "budget solutions," more than half of which will come from a $1 billion grab of Proposition 10 funding from First 5 California, First 5 LA and other county Proposition 10 Commissions. The proposal also calls for redirecting 50 percent of all future Proposition 10 funding to the state's General Fund. If approved by legislators and voters, the Proposition 10 fund diversion to state coffers would have a devastating impact on young children and families who depend on First 5-funded services in L.A. County and throughout the state. (Click here to read about testimony supporting First 5 at a recent Senate Budget Committee hearing.)

 Brown's proposal would also realign a number of health and human services to local counties, including child welfare programs. It is unknown at this time how this proposed move would impact the County's youngest children.