Countywide : Budget Cuts Seen as Threat to Children

California’s children are suffering and things will only get worse as legislators slash spending to meet revenue shortfalls, a high-ranking state official said Wednesday.

“What we’re going to experience in the next decade is a battle for our children,” said Stephen Rhoads, state undersecretary for Child Development and Education. “It’s going to be a tough, tough, tough struggle.”

Rhoads spoke in Orange at the annual luncheon meeting of Florence Crittenton Services of Orange County, which houses troubled, abused teen-age girls and their infant children.

After three months on the job in the Cabinet-level department that Gov. Pete Wilson established by executive order last year, Rhoads said it is “difficult to be upbeat.”

He predicted mammoth, across-the-board cuts for state agencies as legislators struggle to slash nearly $6 billion to balance the budget.

Despite the depressing economic outlook, Rhoads said: “The real challenge facing us in California is our children.”

One of every four children in California are born into poverty, Rhoads told the gathering of about 100 supporters of the Orange shelter for teen-age girls and infants. A quarter of children in California--which has the highest teen-pregnancy rate in the nation--are born to unwed mothers, and 22% of the state’s children have no health coverage.

Every five minutes, Rhoads said, a California baby is born into poverty. Every 15 minutes, one dies. And every 18 hours, a child is murdered.

“We’re going to have to work harder,” Rhoads said of children’s service agencies.

Calling California’s racial diversity “the greatest cultural experiment in the world,” he told the mostly white audience that “we have to succeed” in improving education and support programs for minority youth.

He praised groups such as Crittenton, which has three facilities in Fullerton housing 70 teen-age girls and 20 of their infants, plus 20 other toddlers from dysfunctional families.

He also said local and state agencies trying to help children should re-examine their programs to reduce overlap.

But even as he spoke of a renewed commitment to the next generation, Rhoads was pessimistic about the future.

“These are huge, huge cuts,” Rhoads said. “No matter how you look at these problems, the solutions are not very nice.”