Cuts for Disabled Are Main Budget Snag : Welfare: Some Democrats balk at reductions sought by Wilson Administration. Activists say they cannot afford loss of any of monthly stipend.

After months of calculations and negotiations, the debate over California’s delayed $56-billion budget is increasingly turning on the $614-a-month checks that disabled people such as Frank Smith receive.

Smith, 44, his 108-pound body contorted by cerebral palsy, receives $614 in monthly disability pay, about $168 of which comes from the California general fund. The rest comes from Uncle Sam.

Various proposals are being considered, but all come down to this: When the budget impasse is resolved, Smith’s checks almost certainly will be lower.

“I can’t make it on less,” Smith said in his halting and strained speech, sitting in his wheelchair. He is one of about 1 million disabled people in California who receive monthly government checks, and one of several dozen who have been in the Capitol for more than a week, demonstrating outside Gov. Pete Wilson’s office, trying to talk to legislators, hoping to blunt the coming cuts.

“What’s going to happen [if the cuts are made] is we’re going to go homeless, we’re going to be institutionalized, or we’re going to be dead,” said Barbara Kerr, 49, who has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair. “We can’t afford it.”

On Tuesday, three Assembly Democrats pledged that they won’t vote for a budget that lowers payments to disabled people or to people on welfare. Three votes is far from a majority. But the budget must be passed by a two-thirds vote in both houses, and those three lawmakers could gain enough allies to block the budget from being adopted any time soon.

“There are lines being drawn about who should be helped in the state budget, and who should be hurt,” said Assemblywoman Sheila J. Kuehl (D-Santa Monica). “The people who have been chosen to be hurt by this [Wilson] Administration . . . are these people, and that is uncivilized.

“Why are other issues not on the table?” Kuehl asked, then motioned to the people brought to the news conference, some blind, some in wheelchairs. “Answer: Because these are the advocates for those issues, and they are not the advocates of power.”

The Wilson Administration is insisting on a combined cut of $600 million from the $5 billion spent annually on disability payments, known as supplement security payments, and welfare for families, called Aid to Families With Dependent Children.

That $600 million translates to this: A welfare mother of three, who now receives a monthly check of $594, would get less than $550 a month if she and her children live in Los Angeles. A disabled person, whose monthly check is $614, would have to make ends meet on less than $560 in Los Angeles.

“The central issue that remains [in the budget talks] is making enough welfare cuts to bring the budget into balance. We can’t sustain the current level of grants,” said Russell Gould, Wilson’s finance director. Gould said the state’s welfare rolls are increasing.

The Wilson Administration cites statistics showing that even with the cuts, California pays welfare recipients more than all but three states, and disabled people more than all but two states.

If the governor’s proposed cuts cannot obtain the two-thirds majority necessary for them to be part of the budget package, Senate GOP Leader Ken Maddy said he may carry legislation that would allow the cuts to be made by a simple majority vote.

Such a move would keep current payments intact, but only for a few months. To make the 1995-1996 budget balance, the proposal being floated by Maddy and others would require that the entire $600 million be slashed from checks starting in January when such a bill would take effect.

“It would obviously be easier if we could put the entire cut in the budget,” Maddy said, noting that if cuts come only in the second half of the year, they would be even more dramatic than what is being contemplated.

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) called the idea of making the welfare cuts in a majority vote bill separate from the budget a “sinister plot.”

“We talk about family values. These kids are family. They are the future,” Vasconcellos said of the about 1.7 million California children on welfare.

California’s welfare grants have steadily gone down during the 1990s. In 1992, a mother on welfare with two children received $663 a month. People with disabilities received $645 a month.

Unlike California, many states provide no supplemental payments to disabled people, and expect them to live on the $446 they receive from the federal government.

Wilson also notes that welfare recipients receive about $235 a month in federal food stamps. Disabled people who receive supplemental payments do not get food stamps.

Welfare cuts generally gain political support, particularly among Republicans, partly because few welfare recipients vote, and those who do generally vote Democratic. People with disabilities, however, are more politically active, and have champions among Republicans.

One is Assemblyman Tom Bordonaro (R-Paso Robles). A quadriplegic since he was injured in a car accident at age 18, Bordonaro is a fiscal conservative, but also is the one California lawmaker who must use a wheelchair.

“I have friends that rely very heavily on [the aid], and it’s very difficult to make ends meet,” Bordonaro said. “Living in a wheelchair is very expensive. There are costs that one would not believe.”

Recently, Wilson proposed that welfare and disability payments differ within the state, with the size of the checks based on the cost of living in various counties.

There is a two-region plan, in which payments would be higher in 17 high-cost counties, including Los Angeles and Orange counties, and lower in the other 41 counties, including Riverside and San Bernardino.

In a three-region plan, payments would be highest in Orange, Ventura, San Mateo, Marin and Contra Costa counties. Los Angeles, San Diego and 21 other counties would be in a mid-cost region. Recipients in rural California would receive the lowest payments.

To obtain the $600-million cut Wilson is seeking, people who live in high-rent areas would have their benefits cut 5%. People in middle-rent areas would have their checks cut 9%, and people in low-rent areas would have their benefits cut 14%.

Under either plan, welfare recipients in Orange County would receive the highest grant. But Gould said the average low-end rent in Orange County is $612 a month--more than the current welfare payments.

In Los Angeles, where 34% of the state’s welfare recipients live, the Wilson Administration assumes a family of three can find housing for $441 a month. In low-cost areas, monthly rent averages $238.

Gould acknowledged that the Administration’s proposal calls for dramatic cuts in welfare. “A lot of people on welfare have shared housing or may be in a small apartment,” he said. “They have to make do. It is very tight.”