Colusa supervisor helps prevent rural funding cuts

A Colusa supervisor has been credited with helping a bill through the state Legislature that is designed to protect 13 rural counties, including Colusa and Glenn, from proposed funding cuts.

“Kim (Vann) did a fantastic job knocking on doors and pleaded our case in Sacramento,” said Paul A. Smith, a spokesman for the Regional Council of Rural Counties. “There is no question that we could not have done this without her.” Smith also praised the involvement of Glenn County’s Chief Administrative Officer, David Shoemaker and the offices of state senators Cox and Aanestad and Assemblymen Doug LaMalfa.

Smith said he is hopeful the governor would sign the bill sometime this week.

The senate bill, SB1xxx, passed the state Senate in February and the Assembly on Monday, and now sits on the governor’s desk. It would exempt counties with a population of under 40,000 from the midyear funding cuts approved earlier this year, according to a statement from LaMalfa, whose district includes Colusa and Glenn counties.

Rural counties were facing the loss of millions of state funding dollars for roadwork, social services and rural medical care. Vann estimated about $20 million would continue to flow into the rural county budgets as a result of the new law.

“This money means that we will not have to dip into other funds for our county roads this summer,” she said.

The bill allows Glenn, Colusa and 11 other rural counties to continue receiving the level of state funding that they were previously allotted prior to the governor’s January budget proposals. The bill has an urgency clause; which means the law becomes effective the moment the governor signs it, LaMalfa said.

Jon Wrysinski, Colusa Public Works deputy director, estimated about $550,000 would continue to flow into county public works projects as a result of the bill. “It’s huge,” he said, “if this bill doesn’t get signed, then the road department, for all intents and purposes, would go out of business.”

Wrysinski said, without the exemption, the department would barely have enough money to keep their staff employed. The bill would allow a number of road improvement projects to continue as planned, if passed.

The exemption also ensures that rural counties will receive their August social service payments. “That’s a huge benefit,” Vann said Monday. “Health service programs are state mandated which means that we must have those programs even if we have to pull from other budgets,” she added.

Beth Robey, director of Colusa’s health and human services department, said local social service departments would benefit immensely from the legislation. She called Vann’s efforts critical. “I also find it reprehensible that the state was trying to deal with its short fall by just passing it on to local government,” Robey said. “This bill is a huge help to us because we don’t have the cash in the bank to float those costs.”

David Shoemaker, Glenn County’s chief administrative officer, said keeping the money flowing into social services was critical for the county’s budget. He said that Glenn County was also able to negotiate to receive between $800,000 and $900,000 from the state in back payments in early April.

Lawmakers were also able to ensure that funding for rural hospitals was included in the final form of the bill, LaMalfa said. “This measure will address the concerns of rural residents who are worried about losing their local health care providers, and I believe this health care provision is a key part of this bill,” he said in a prepared statement. “Our working families cannot wait a year to get the medical care they need today.”

LaMalfa called the health care provision a key component of the bill. Rural communities have fewer medical care options than urban areas.

Rural communities have fewer options for medical care than urban areas. “These cuts would have been devastating to some of our communities, whose hospitals could have faced serious funding shortfalls and perhaps even have been forced to close,” added LaMalfa.

Contact Rob Parsons at 458-2121 or rparsons@tcnpress.com.