Social services recipients, kids protest cuts

LANCASTER • More than two dozen children grouped with their government-funded child care providers held up signs and blew whistles outside state Sen. George Runner's office, begging lawmakers in Sacramento to pass a budget that does not eliminate social services.

Though the state's welfare-to-work system, CalWORKS, and the Child Care Resource Center, which uses public funds in contracts with child care providers, seem to be safe for now, changes might be coming.

A three-day delay in payments made to the individual providers last month flooded the resource center with calls wondering what was next.

Though agency CEO Michael Olenick assured providers that checks would resume their regular schedule this month, he, like most others, could not predict what will happen in Sacramento.

Lawmakers have proposed adjusting qualifications for government-funded child care, including raising from 1 to 2 the age children become eligible for the service, as well as changing the income level for families entitled to aid, Olenick said.

The worry, however, for people like Francis Ramirez, who runs Francis Child Care out of her east Lancaster home, is that her checks will dwindle or, worse, disappear altogether.

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