Bill Would Allow Cuts in General Assistance : Welfare: Advocates of poor decry state plan to permit decreases up to 27%. The move is meant to aid counties harmed in the budget battle.

General Assistance, the last-resort benefit for the poor funded entirely by the counties, could take one of the biggest hits in the battle to balance California’s revenue-strapped budget.

Eager to ease the pain of a $2.6-billion shift of property tax revenue from local government to state education, lawmakers and Gov. Pete Wilson have agreed on a budget compromise that creates a way for counties to reduce general relief by as much as 27%.

“It (the new bill) gives the county a free hand basically to dismantle General Relief, which is the only safety net when everything else runs out. If that happens, it’s going to make this county look like Dickens’ London,” said Jamie Court, an advocate for the homeless at the San Pedro-based Harbor Interfaith Shelter.

The program, which is required by the state but financed solely by the counties, provides monthly payments to about 168,000 poor adults who are not eligible for state or federal benefits. Nearly two-thirds of them, 103,000, live in Los Angeles County.

Advocates for the poor, who consider General Assistance the last safety net, say they expect county governments throughout the state to take advantage of the new process that would relax the requirements the state imposes on them.

In Los Angeles County, where the program is called General Relief, most recipients receive $293 a month plus a $9 clothing allowance; if they share housing, they are paid less. A 27% cut would reduce the grant to $221.

“With the loss of income for local government as serious as it is, there is going to be just unavoidable pressure to reduce programs for the poor, especially General Assistance. You have to expect that a significant number of counties will to try to make use of this process,” said Casey McKeever, directing attorney for the Western Center on Law & Poverty Inc.

Until now, state law has forced counties to maintain the program at a level generally tied to benefits paid by Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a federal-state program that provides support for poor children. But with legislative approval and the governor’s signature likely, new legislation would sever the link to AFDC and allow counties to cut deeper.

Under the bill, the counties would have to show that without the cuts they would face “significant financial distress” that would force reductions in other services, particularly law enforcement. Before the cuts could go into effect, they would have to be approved by each county’s board of supervisors and the Commission on State Mandates, a majority of whose members are appointed by the governor.

Court, of the Harbor Interfaith Shelter, said any cut in General Assistance would devastate the poor and overburden struggling charities. He said it is a common misconception that most General Assistance recipients are able-bodied young men; in fact, the program provides aid to a wide range of poor, including the mentally ill, disabled and unemployed whose other benefits have expired. County figures show the number of people on the program has doubled in the past two years.

Karen Coker, a lobbyist for the California State Assn. of Counties, said most counties do not want to cut General Assistance and would only do so if they had no other choice.

She said many boards of supervisors believe that cuts in General Assistance create only illusory savings because they lead to greater long-run costs as the health of the poor deteriorates and many resort to crime to support themselves.

Coker said some counties expect the law to be overturned in court and will be reluctant to make cuts they might later have to restore. But she acknowledged that with the loss in property tax funds, other counties “won’t have any other place to go.”

Counties also face the fear that if they do not reduce General Assistance and their neighboring counties do, they could become a magnet for the poor, she said.