Bill Would Boost Fees for Birth Certificates : Legislature: Hike of up to $3 would go to fight child abuse. Measure faces battle in Assembly.

Anticipating cuts in federal welfare funds, children’s advocacy groups are pushing for state legislation that would allow counties to raise the cost of birth certificates by as much as $3 and earmark the funds for programs to prevent child abuse.

The measure (SB 750) by state Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) could raise as much as $3.5 million a year statewide, including about $750,000 in Los Angeles County where parents of newborns now are charged $16 for each certified birth certificate. In almost all other counties, the maximum that can be charged is $13 per copy, Killea’s office said.

Killea’s measure narrowly passed the Senate in May on a 22-16 vote and is pending on the Assembly floor, where Republican critics are lining up to assail the proposal as a tax increase that could make California’s certified birth certificates the costliest in the nation.

Counties already can designate as much as $4 of the fee for child abuse programs. The Killea proposal would allow an additional $3 per birth certificate to be set aside for nonprofit groups for a variety of child abuse prevention services, including programs to identify and counsel abusive parents and curb violence in homes.

“It’s definitely crime prevention,” said Lenny Goldberg, a lobbyist for the legislation’s chief sponsor, the California Consortium to Prevent Child Abuse. For example, Goldberg said, “sexual abuse continues through generation to generation unless there is real intervention and treatment.”

What worries Goldberg and other backers of the Killea bill is that federal welfare reform proposals will give states lump sums of money in the form of block grants.

Goldberg said the block grants are likely to eliminate child abuse prevention funds in many rural and small counties and diminish the funds elsewhere or divert them to foster care or other child welfare services. He estimates that under federal welfare overhaul proposals, at least several million dollars will be cut for child abuse prevention in California.

The Killea bill allows county governments to generate revenues on their own to continue to provide services in areas where the federal funds are likely to dry up in the coming years. Among the supporters of the measure are the Children’s Advocacy Institute and the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center in Rancho Mirage, a child abuse treatment facility.

John Shields, executive director of the Barbara Sinatra center, said he expects cuts at the federal level. The Killea bill would give counties “the discretion to deal with that at the local level,” he said, and compensate for the loss of federal money.

While Gov. Pete Wilson has not taken a position on the measure, the state Health and Welfare Agency opposes it.

“With the additional charge it would put the state of California in the position of charging more for a certified birth certificate than any other state,” said Lisa Kalustian, an agency spokeswoman.

The most now charged by a state is $15 per birth certificate in Oregon, Connecticut and New York, she said. Under the Killea bill, the cost could rise to as much as $19 in Los Angeles County and $16 in most other counties, according to a legislative analyst.

Goldberg said poor parents can receive a waiver for the fees. “So we really don’t see this as a burden,” he said.

Still, Kalustian said, “we don’t want to be putting a tax on people and placing a burden on people who just need copies of a birth certificate.”

That view was echoed by state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino), who said: “There’s no nexus between where this money is to be spent on child abuse prevention and how this fee is to be collected. If there’s a way to tax child abusers, I would probably be on Lenny Goldberg’s side.”

But Craig Reynolds, Killea’s staff director, said, “There’s plenty of nexus between children being born . . . and the state having an interest in seeing that children who are abused are being taken care of.”