Budget Impasse Hits Home

My wife Lisa is a licensed speech/language pathologist in the state of California. Currently, she provides her services as an independent contractor to an agency that hires her out to families needing her services for their children. The agency gets its funding from the state.

Today she was notified that, due to the budget impasse currently in process in Sacramento, the agency was no longer able to pay her for her services. She was given the option either to stop providing services, or to continue with the knowledge that she would be working for free until the governor and legislature solved their budget disagreements.

Understandably, Lisa is quite upset about this. Currently, she's the breadwinner in my family. As I build my new business as a loan officer with a new company, I have essentially no income. Business is growing, but very slowly, and I anticipate I will not return to my former earning capability for another year or so. If it were not for my previous employer's generous severance package, a large tax refund, and her income, we'd be in real trouble. As it is, we've burned through about half the money I got.

I'm an optimist and believe that this impasse cannot continue for much longer. We are on day 70 since the budget deadline passed. The politicians in Sacramento, already unpopular, are facing serious consequences if they can't get this budget passed. Already, Governor Schwarzenegger has promised to veto any legislation that passes his desk before the budget is passed. That's nearly 1,000 bills. And he's running out of time himself, as there are some bills requiring action on his part by September 30 or else they become law without his signature. The Democrats who control the legislature might opt to hold those bills or flood the governor's office with them right before the deadline, in the hopes that he can't decide on all of them in time for some or most of them to become law.

A few years ago Lisa and I took advantage of these services when Max had some oral-motor issues that were affecting his ability to eat/swallow properly. We had only a brief need for these services, but the result was that Max can now feel the food that is in his mouth and he knows how to deal with it. At the time, we probably could have afforded to pay for these services with insurance or even privately, but we didn't know how long we'd need them. It was especially helpful for us, but I cannot possibly imagine how some of the families will deal if Lisa discontinues services. She sees some severely developmentally disabled children who will need a lifetime of therapies to cope with their problems.

Agencies right and left are shutting their doors. Drug rehab centers, day care centers, dialysis centers, etc., are all tapped out, having run through their lines of credit.

What can you do? You can call or write your Assemblyperson or State Senator -- as well as your Congressperson and US Senators -- to push the Governor and Legislature to get past their issues and solve these problems -- now. Enough is enough. More than three months since negotiations began and no progress. Already, an effort is underway to recall Schwarzenegger, led by the state's well-financed prison guards union. Individual members of the Senate and Assembly could find themselves similarly in hot water.

If there was any time when you could effect change, now is that time. No more campaign contributions, no more rubber-stamp reelections, and no more apathy. People, you need to wake up to the reality that your state is on shaky economic ground. If you think this won't affect you, you're very, very wrong.