Report: cuts to state budget gutted programs for children

Yawu Miller

During the 1990s, as the economy boomed and state revenue rose, lawmakers ushered through a series of tax cuts that made an already advantageous business climate even more so for the large corporations.

Like all good things the economic expansion came to an end and, with a $3 billion budget shortfall and no will on Beacon Hill to raise taxes, the budget was balanced by cutting everything from education and public safety to public health and public parks.

Among those most affected by the budget cuts are the Commonwealth’s children, who are more likely to depend on state services than adults, according to a study released Monday by the Home for Little Wanderers.

“It’s not so much that programs for children were cut as it was that when you cut any government programs, children are more affected,” said Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which prepared the report for the Home for Little Wanderers.

In Massachusetts an estimated 13 percent of children younger than 6 live below the poverty level. The families of those children likely depend on programs like the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program, which subsidizes rents for families transitioning out of shelters.

A cut of $24 million to that program between 2001 and 2004 meant that 1,200 more families either remained in shelters or remained homeless.

Children are also more likely to access community centers, public parks and other city and state-funded public spaces which have been affected by budget shortfalls at the state and local levels, Berger noted.

The cuts to programs aimed directly at helping children have also had a potentially devastating impact on the state’s children. Between 2002 and 2004 the state cut per-pupil state funding for education more than any other state, according to the report, which cites an 80 percent cut to remediation programs for students who fared poorly on the MCAS exam.

The report cites the cuts as a possible cause for the recent decline in scores on the exam.

Other youth-oriented programs that have been slashed include anti-tobacco programs, teen pregnancy prevention programs and AIDS prevention programs, all of which were key to the operation of many youth programs across the state, according to Alex Oliver Davila, executive director of Sociedad Latina, a youth program in Mission Hill.

“When I started working here, the bulk of our funding was from the Department of Public Health,” she said.

Seeing the budget cuts looming on the horizon, Davila was able to diversify the organization’s funding sources and switched the focus of youth programming from smoking prevention to organizing youth advocacy around public health policy. But the lack of anti-smoking funds has sparked an increase in illegal tobacco sales to minors.

“We’re going right back to where we started,” she said.

Cuts to the Department of Social Services affected some of the state’s most vulnerable children — those in foster care. A reduction in the number of staff who recruited foster parents made it more difficult to place children in foster homes.

Similarly, layoffs of DSS lawyers created lengthy delays for families wishing to adopt children in the care of DSS, according to Joan Wallace-Benjamin, executive director of the Home For Little Wanderers.

With the system overburdened and resources at a minimum, Wallace-Benjamin says the state’s most vulnerable children are not receiving the services they need.

“The aggregation of cuts tells a very significant story about the state’s lack of commitment to children and families,” she said. “We’re very, very concerned about the cuts in DSS’s administrative budget.”

Berger said the report was necessary to help Massachusetts residents, who in 1998 voted overwhelmingly for cuts to the state’s income tax.

“To a lot of people, both in the public and in the Legislature, there’s a disconnect between the numbers and the results,” he said. “If you ask people if they want to pay less in taxes, they say yes. But if you ask whether they want better schools, they also say yes.

“What this report shows is how much of what we value is provided by government.”