Assembly Rejects Bill to Fund Centers for Retarded

Disregarding more than 1,000 demonstrators chanting outside the Capitol, members of the Assembly on Tuesday rejected a $25-million emergency funding bill to keep open 21 state service centers assisting mentally retarded and disabled Californians.

Democrats and Republicans voted along party lines in rejecting each other’s efforts to provide an injection of cash to keep the centers operating through June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Without the money, administrators for the centers say they would have to begin closing their doors as early as next month. The Orange County Developmental Disability Center, which serves 6,700 households, would run out of money and close March 20, Don Sizemore, a manager at the center, said Tuesday.

Lawmakers of both parties indicated, however, that they expect to reach a solution to the funding problem before the centers are forced to close. But they appeared far from a compromise Tuesday.

Support Services Offered

The centers provide support services for about 90,000 mentally retarded people and others suffering from such disabilities as cerebral palsy. Without the services, many would have to live in state institutions.

Many direct services to the disabled, such as monthly living grants and schooling, will continue even if the centers are forced to temporarily close their doors.

“As of March 20, our doors will definitely be closed,” Sizemore said. His center, which has a staff of 200 and an annual budget of $34 million, provides intake and evaluation services. It also contracts with about 600 privately run homes and institutions in Orange County that house developmentally disabled residents.

Those homes and institutions have guaranteed money from state contracts through June 30, he said. Although they will remain open, they will not have the services of the center.

“There will be no response to phone calls and letters,” he said, “no response to client emergencies, no funding for new services, no monitoring of facilities for health and safety, no evaluation of the effectiveness of programs, and our client’s rights attorney (ombudsman) will no longer be here, and no intake of new clients.

“It’s just going to be a terrible blow to the system,” Sizemore added. “We get about 800 (new) people a year.”

Unless new money is approved, Sizemore said, the current center staff in Orange will cash out its vacation time, a cost of $310,000 to the taxpayers.

“The staff can’t afford to sit around from March 20 until funding for the new fiscal year starts during the first week in July,” he said. “They will go off and get other jobs elsewhere.”

The problem involves a cash shortage that developed during the current budget year when the Deukmejian Administration was denied a request for federal funding. Even under the darkest scenario, the centers would reopen when the new 1989-90 fiscal year begins July 1.

In Tuesday’s votes, Democrats first rejected Republican amendments that would have provided a special $25-million loan from the motor vehicle license fund to keep the Department of Developmental Services center program afloat.

Gov. George Deukmejian supports the loan proposal because he is still confident of getting federal money. Democrats put up 42 votes, to 29 for Republicans, to table those amendments.

Without the amendments to guarantee a source of money, Republicans refused to vote with Democrats for the bill. The bill received majority approval in a 44-1 roll call, but fell 10 votes short of passage because it needed 54 votes--two-thirds of the Assembly membership--to pass as an urgency measure.

The votes left lawmakers from both sides angrily pointing fingers at each other.

Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), who introduced the Senate-passed bill, said efforts by Democratic Assemblyman John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara to defeat the amendments were “a political smoke screen” designed to force a tax increase if financing for the program cannot be found.

“It is unconscionable and immoral to hold the funding of this bill,” Seymour said after the vote.