California's Budget Explained: What's at Stake for People with Disabilities

California Governor Newsom's proposed 2026-27 budget must be finalized before July, so now is the time for disability advocacy organizations and families to make our voices heard about the programs that mean so much to our kids. We asked Christofer Arroyo, Deputy Director of Policy and Public Affairs for the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, for a breakdown of the proposed budget and advice to help inform and empower parents as we advocate for our children’s futures.

Watch the full replay of our live event in the video above, or read a recap of the highlights here.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Undivided Live. I'm Lindsay Crain and I head the Content and Community teams at Undivided. For my visual description, I am a female with a short brown bob, glasses, and a gray blazer with white dots, sitting in a green office with bookcases to my right. Undivided is a digital platform and service that helps families raising kids with disabilities. We simplify complex systems so families can access the care they need, like education, insurance, and public benefits like Medi-Cal, IHSS, Regional Center, and more. And as everyone listening today knows, those systems need to be financed, staffed, prioritized, and protected. So did the governor's budget come through for our community?

Chris is going to take us through it. We are thrilled to have with us today Christopher Arroyo. Chris has worked with individuals with developmental disabilities and their families for over 35 years. For the past year, Chris has served as Deputy Director of Policy and Public Affairs for the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, where he has worked for over 26 years. Chris' experience includes working as a client's rights advocate at a state developmental center, a service provider running programs for children and adults with developmental disabilities, a contracted service coordinator for a Regional Center, chair of Santa Monica's Disabilities Commission, and advocate specializing in Regional Centers, special education, legislation and systemic change, and so much more. I will also add that Chris is one of the best people at breaking down complicated situations into language anyone can understand, like the state budget. So welcome, Chris. Thank you for being here today.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is going to be a lot of fun. Yes, it is. And we want to give a huge thanks and shout out to our incredible partner organizations for this event. AbilityPath, Autism Society of Los Angeles, Autism Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, California Down Syndrome Advocacy Coalition, Creekside School, Down Syndrome Information Alliance, SmartCare Behavioral Health Consultation Services,

Village, West Side Family Resource and Empowerment Center, West Side Regional Center, and of course, the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities. So thank you all for spreading the word to your community so they could hear from Chris today, but most importantly, thank you for all the work you do for individuals and families. Progress doesn't happen in isolation.

As we all know, it can take a village to support our kids, and if you're listening, you are a critical part of that village, so thank you for being here. Governor Newsom unveiled his proposed budget on January 9th. Some were relieved at what they didn't see, and others have raised concerns that it doesn't do enough to protect disability services from significant threats coming from the federal level, specifically the Medicaid cuts expected in November 2027.

A Lanterman Coalition statement stressed that stability today does not equal security tomorrow. So let's talk about what the budget says, what it doesn't, and what we could be facing for the May budget revise for programs like Regional Center, the Self-Determination program, Medi-Cal, IHSS, special education, the Department of Rehab, and more. Plus, Chris will highlight some current bills that could help our families and tell us what we can do today to support. So with that, welcome, Chris, we are so grateful you're here. Take it away. Thank you again for having me. So again, my name is Chris Arroyo. My pronouns are he/him and for a visual description, I am a bald guy with glasses and a Van Dyke goatee, wearing a polo shirt with a virtual blue background behind me.

So the first thing I want to go over is the overall picture. So the overall picture of the budget, there are some interesting things. The first thing is this year's budget, so the one where... the current fiscal year, so just... I'm sure many of you are familiar with this. We... Our fiscal year in California goes from July 1st to June 30th, and so therefore when we talk about budget years, we use two years, so right now presently we are in 2025-2026 fiscal year, budget year, and so the proposed budget is for the 26/27 budget year. And so in the current year, the one we're sitting in right now, overall, the entire state budget is about $237 billion (with a ‘b’). 237 billion.

The current proposed budget is $248 billion for 26/27. And so that's an increase of about $10.5 billion, and ultimately represents growth in what the state is going to be able to do. More money, you can do more things. Before I go much further, by the way, I do see in the... I do see the... the participants who are here. I know you can't see each other, and I recognize many, many, many of you, so I just want to acknowledge and say hello to those of you who I know well and to those of you who I don't, I look forward to seeing your feedback in the Q&A to basically see the things that you're most interested in. My hope is that we cover that throughout the... throughout the next hour or so. So again, $237 to $248 billion overall. We have predicted in California more than a $42 billion revenue.

We've got more revenue coming in than we planned for. We thought there was going to be a bigger hit to our budget than what has arrived. This is good news. More money’s always good news. So ultimately, the budget that's projected in this current projected budget, 26/27, is about a $3 billion shortfall. Okay, $3 billion shortfall. Some money has to be set aside in the rainy day fund. So many of you may be familiar, here in California, we have what we always call a rainy day fund, and it's basically a place where we can stash some money for surprise costs. It's an account that we can raid if we are under budgeted, if we need more money than we've got, and so we can raid that money or use it for any surprises. And so some... it's looking like there's going to be some money added to that account coming up in the future.

Not right there. I don't believe it's scheduled for this current projected budget. In 27/28... So now we're going a year out from the budget that was just released a week and a half ago. We're going further out than the current budget that's being projected, and there is a shortfall of $22 billion that is projected for 27/28. So because of this, because of the volatility in the amount of money that's been expected to arrive in the form of taxes for the state, in the form of revenue, in the form of money that's being made, there has been sort of this idea that May Revise, which I'll talk about in half a second, May Revise is going to have a lot of updated information. So what this means... For those of you who are budget nerds, you know this. For those of you who aren't, quite fine. So I'm going to explain what this means.

Our Constitution requires that the budget is developed annually and released in January. There are a number of public hearings that take place through the legislature. Legislative budget hearing... budget committees hold hearings to get public input, to get additional data from state departments, from the Department of Finance, for example, as well as the departments themselves that utilize the money, like Department of Developmental Services, and ultimately take the input they get from the hearing, the governor... from the hearings, many hearings, the governor hears this stuff and then May Revise comes out, and May Revise can be adjusted because we have a better idea of the tax receipts, of the money that's coming into the state, and it can be adjusted based on the information that comes along in the hearings, what people say, what departments reflect, etc., etc.

And so bottom line is, typically we see a budget that's proposed in January and then in May Revise, we typically, not always, but typically will see that some of the things that were proposed in January do not come to pass with May Revise. With this year's budget, by telling us that it's going to be updated with information about revenue and spending, we could be following this pattern and we may not be following the pattern, and I know that's a horrible thing to say. We want some definitive what's going to happen stuff, and it's really a toss up. We don't know which way this is going to go, and so May Revise... I'm eagerly going to be looking forward to May Revise and seeing what we see.

Going department by department, the way the budget is reported, and I'll go through this a little bit at the end if we have time, but one of the places anybody can go to get the budget, which is where I got my information, is ebudget.ca.gov. It's a website. It's part of the Department of Finance and they post all the budgetary information there. There's a summary that isn't too tough to read. It's not in totally plain language, but it's not written in super accounting speak either, which is great. And so the way they break it up is by departments, and so we can see what is being proposed. For DDS and the Regional Centers, there has been $21 billion allocated to the system that is anticipated to serve 527,000 people.

And so this is an increase of about $2.4 billion from last year, and it's an increase that's anticipated of about 37,000 people. That's... I don't know about you. That sounds like a lot to me. And so ultimately, that's what we are seeing overall with the DDS system. So there's a couple of things. One is Medicaid reimbursements, so the money that we're able utilize, there's more money coming in, and so that's going to result in a budget increase, -- or really savings, because we're getting more money coming in -- of $154 million, so that's pretty chunky. Although with 21 billion, I don't know what 154 compares in terms of a percentage. The budget as it's written... So when you go to ebudget and you check it out and you get the full budget summary, it's kindly in the chat right now, you click on that link, one of the things that you're going to notice is there's a pattern in the way things are written up.

There's a very, very clear pattern. There's sort of a description of what's happening, usually a financial comparison to the previous fiscal year, and then what they talk about are major accomplishments, so these are things... these are initiatives, projects, things that money was allocated for in previous fiscal years that has taken shape, that is taking effect, that has been implemented, or is in the process of being developed and implemented, whatever the status is. In this budget, it very strongly points out all the major accomplishments of the administration, so that's there. The next part that you will see if you look at it is what are the significant changes to the budget, and one of the things I found was typically I see some kind of update on the fiscal year and what's happening, these projects, these accomplishments, and then usually there's quite some lengthy write ups about the significant changes or proposals that are in the budget.

This year it was quite the opposite. Many, many, many accomplishments and only a few number of changes, although there are some departments, there's some exception to that, and we're going to cover that. So getting back to DDS specifically, one of the current projects -- I think people have been aware that there are webinars that have taken place that DDS has put on to educate all of us about their efforts -- is pertaining to LOIS, so the Life Outcome Improvement System, and ultimately it's costing $14 million in the coming year. That is the proposal. This is the same as this fiscal year, so no changes expected. In DDS they're also expecting a cold shut down of Fairview Developmental Center.

What does that mean? Well, warm shutdowns are kind of like, yeah, we're starting... We're getting ready to close things down. We're getting ready to get ready. And ultimately with the cold shutdown, that means, no, it's... This is it. The door’s being closed. It's being chained up. Done, over, it's closed. So because of that, there's an expected savings of $8 million. That is it. That is the... Those are the headlines for DDS. We were told in a meeting that there's going to be some changes with Self-Determination. These are proposals at this time. And what we were ultimately told is this: Many of you may be familiar with... in the Self-Determination Program, with the Regional Centers, that the Regional Centers get an amount of money called implementation funds.

We've heard of these implementation funds. And every year the committees and the Regional Centers get together. The advisory committees get together with the Regional Centers and figure out what are the local needs. How should this money be spent to promote and make the program smoother, better, etc.? And so there is a proposal... For a variety of reasons, DDS right now, has been absorbing costs. They've been paying for the background checks, the fingerprint checks, all that administrative stuff that happens behind the scenes that moves SDP forward, and so consequently, one of the things that is being done with the budget is it's being proposed that those funds, those implementation funds are eliminated and instead get transferred over to cover the administrative costs that have come out of DDS’ general funds, and so that's something that I think people are going to be looking for more information about.

I'm fairly... No, I'm very confident that there are going to be some hearings and more information coming out about this stuff. With health, one of the things that I was prepared, and did look at very closely, was health. Many people are familiar with HR1 by now, which is a federal bill that essentially reduces states’ funding for Medicaid programs. Here in California, we call Medicaid ‘Medi-Cal,’ and there are many Medicaid dollars that California receives that go to more than just Medi-Cal, and so ultimately we've been looking very closely... I think all of us have. And so ultimately, when we look at HR1 and its impact on California's budget, there are a number of things. So, first of all, we expect that because HR1 is passed, it's going to put an additional $1.1 billion obligation on state funds to cover that stuff. It's going to... It's also going to require $300 million out of our state budget to cover CalFresh, which people tend to know as food stamps traditionally.

And so... and these costs are in addition to the typical stuff for growth. So one of the things we see in the budget... and to me it's a curiosity, it's just kind of interesting, is to know how many new people are joining systems and is the budget accommodating that, and typically it does. So typically we'll see the budget grow in order to accommodate the new folks that are joining various systems like CalFresh, like Medi-Cal, like the Regional Centers. And so one of the things that we've seen is, in this proposed budget written up, is that there's going to be an increase of about $2.4 billion in the budget, in costs to California. And so breaking those down, there are a couple of things. A work requirement. People, beginning January 1st, 2027, who are able to work are going to need to... are going to have to either be working, attending school, or volunteering. This comes with it an estimate of a reduction of $373 million and $13 billion by the financial year of 2029, 2030, so we're anticipating a few years out here.

So a reduction, in costs. Why? Because there's an expectation that some people won't satisfy the work requirement and then therefore no longer receive the services, so keep that in mind. A reduction from the federal government that matched funding for emergency services is resulting in an increase to California of $658 million this year, or this anticipated year. Forgive me. And $872 million by 2029, 2030. So what does this mean? Exactly what it sounds like. So emergency services, right now the feds match 90% of those funds, so whatever California puts up, 90% is matched by the feds. Because of HR1, we're going to see that drop down to 50%, so if we want to continue providing emergency services at the same level as they look right now, it's going to cost us $658 million to do that.

There's going to be a reduction in federal funding for Medi-Cal for people with certain immigration statuses, and so if the state had continued to provide these services, which it is not anticipating. It has not been announced that they will continue. The cost would have been $786 million in the coming fiscal year and 1.1 billion after that. One of the other things that is an impact from HR1 is the fact that re-determinations are going to be made for eligibility, so instead of checking to see if someone remains eligible for services every year, it is being proposed or is being required that it is done every six months. And because fewer people are expected to be found eligible, because some people just aren't going to be meeting that deadline to submit their paperwork and all that stuff, you know this far better than I do, it's going to result in a reduction or a savings of $463 million in the coming fiscal year and about $3 billion by 29/30.

So it's anticipated that more and more savings will be realized, because more and more people will make mistakes and not be able to submit their paperwork on time and not be found eligible for services, which will result in savings. So understand that much of these savings that are going to arrive at our doorstep are because fewer people are going to be utilizing the services because of these requirements. Additionally, some of you may have heard about some changes in the post office, which sounds completely unrelated, I know. Postmarks. The post office is changing the way postmarks work. So many of us are familiar, especially around April, right? April 15th, a lot of us are familiar. We may be rushing to get to the post office to drop off an envelope and make sure that it's there before a particular deadline because we know that that envelope will be postmarked when we drop it off, and then we meet certain deadlines, like paying taxes.

Well, postmarks and the way they work are going to change. And so right now, the State Council, we are in the process of researching this, and we're going to be putting out an article through our email list in order to educate people about this, because this can have an effect not only on benefits, also on voting, because if you think you're submitting it on time, but postmarks work a little differently, you may be indeed late. You may have dropped it off on the day or a day or two before the actual deadline, but if they're postmarked a few days later, you can see the problem that that may cause. So we're looking into that, and we want to make sure that we educate people about all... about this before... long before it takes effect, so people can plan accordingly.

So again, these cuts or these savings are happening because there's an expectation that people will not be able to meet... that some percentage of people will not be able to meet those requirements. Next, California won't be able to collect taxes from some Medicaid providers, and this means that there's less money coming into the state, and this is because of HR1, and so this is going to cost the state an extra billion dollars. $1.1 billion in the coming fiscal year. There's some good news. One of the things that's happening is the state is going to be able to utilize $233 million in federal funds, so we're just taking it and using it, right? No California dollars going in, it's all federal dollars, to expand access to health care, to strengthen the workforce, which generally when we hear ‘strengthen the workforce,’ it usually means training, it usually means creating more positions, funding more positions, it can be a bunch of stuff like that, and enhance infrastructure in rural and frontier communities with the Department of Health Care access and information, so that's good stuff, right? More money coming in, new programs to serve people in rural areas where it may be tough to get services.

So that's all good stuff. This all rises from a program called the Federal Rural Health Transformation Program. So if you want to look it up, I'm going to repeat that. If you're writing it down right now, it's the Federal Rural Health Transformation Program. IHSS, another system that many of you are concerned with. Couple of things. Number one: 33... more than $33 billion has been put towards IHSS in 26/27, and there are over 875,000 recipients receiving IHSS services. So big numbers. And remember, when we're talking about $33 billion, remember $248 billion is the overall amount of money being devoted to... or being proposed for California's overall budget, all departments, for everything. So 248 billion. IHSS is 33 billion. So just doing... I'm not going to do math.

I'm not brave enough to do it on the fly like that. Not without a calculator, but I mean, it's definitely more than 10%, right? So, maybe closer to 15 of the overall state's budget. So just nerdy things to keep in mind. Those of you know me know I love my nerdy things. Anyway, 27/28... So beginning in 27/28, so not 26/27, which is this proposed budget, so it's the year after, July 1st of 2027. Stop paying for increases in IHSS hours. I'm going to repeat that. You may just be doing a double take right now. Beginning July 1st, 2027, stop paying for increases in IHSS hours. This would save $233 million. What does that mean? Well, we know counties approve your hours, right? Nobody knows better than you what that means, right? When you meet with social workers and they... Has anything changed, right, and you see either your hours maintained or possibly changed, well, now what that means is if it's assessed that you need more hours, the state will no longer pay for those increases as of July 2027.

The counties are going to have to foot the bill, so that's something to keep in mind. It's very important. The cost is going to fall on the counties. Now where they're going to come up with that money, I don't know, but that's $233 million spread across all of the counties in California, and those counties with more people, there are going to be greater costs put towards those counties. The other thing that is going to be... or that is proposed in the budget is to save $3.5 million by eliminating the IHSS backup provider system. The IHSS backup provider system is... First of all, DRC has a web page dedicated just to this, and given the things I'm talking about and what's appearing in the chat, I bet it's going to show up in about a minute, so thank you, Kylie. Thank you, those of you who are working behind the scenes to get that information out there. So there's a link to the program. If you haven't heard about this program, look into it. It's relatively fresh.

It's only been around since, I believe, 2023, so it's relatively new, but there's a proposal to get rid of that IHSS backup provider system. So that's one of the ways that money is being saved. So that's one of the... That's just another... That's the second of three major headlines with IHSS. The third headline is to end state funded IHSS during the waiting period before Medi-Cal begins. So what does this mean? It means there is a program... There is a program right now, and it's proposed to be ended, that said you typically... Right now, if you're waiting to get your Medi-Cal coverage, but you qualify for IHSS, you can get your IHSS. Pretty simple, pretty cool. What this is proposing is IHSS would only be available once the Medi-Cal coverage begins. No Medi-Cal, no IHSS. No early start period for IHSS any longer.

So that will affect new people coming into the system. So one of the implications of this, if the counties are going to be forced to pick up the cost for any increases, and remember, IHSS isn't just for people with disabilities. It's also for people who are aging. The whole purpose of the IHSS program is to keep people out of nursing homes and keep them in their own homes. Well, as we age, if we need IHSS services, as we age, we may find ourselves in need of more assistance as we get older. So people's hours may increase. My expectation... I'm sure there's data out there that shows as people are getting older, they're going to need more IHSS services, and yet the proposal is that the counties are going to have to pick that up. So one of the implications of this may very well be that people are going to have to engage in strong advocacy.

Whenever we see any kinds of changes like this, the implication is always know your rights, know how to advocate, understand what the changes are so that you can advocate appropriately. And so, I fully expect... My agency, SCDD, I'm already talking with DRC, and we're talking about the kinds of information that we want to get out there together in order to educate folks so that they can engage in good advocacy in order to ensure that there's no interruption in services, no reductions in services when the need exists. Moving on. So child care, nutrition, education. Kind of lumped it all together because it mostly impacts kids and people who are under the age of 22.

Lumping that all together, there's a couple of things. So there's going to be cost of living adjustments for child care programs, so if you work in a child care program, there's going to be a COLA, right? If you’re not familiar with COLA, it's Cost of Living Adjustment. So as inflation kicks in, as our own costs increase, there are adjustments made and there's going to be one coming to child care programs that are run by the Department of Social Services. And so they're allocating 90 million bucks for that. There's going to be an increase of almost $383 million, so that's 282 point something, to CalFresh because of the reductions in HR1, so that's important to know.

The state is shoring up those services with state dollars because the federal dollars will not be available. And there's going to be expected $66 million in savings because of HR1 changes to the way... to that... Basically fewer people are going to be able to get CalFresh, so $66 million. Overall amounts, so we're getting back... Let's go to education. The overall amount that's allocated is $150 billion for all programs from transitional kindergarten, from TK up through grade 12, so $150 billion, six million students, more than 10,000 schools. So again, nerdy statistics, but it's good to know it's a massive system, right? When California has an overall projected budget for next year of $248 billion and nearly 150 billion are being devoted to schools, it's not difficult to figure out that a majority of the budget, a huge chunk of the budget, is going towards education.

There are a couple of things that are being done. One is the Learning Recovery Emergency Block grant. So the Learning Recovery Emergency Block grant, that's for the learning losses that students experienced during the pandemic. Additional funding was given to school districts for that, and it's basically going to be continued through not only next year of 26/27, but also 27/28, and so the anticipated cost of that is going to be $757 million, so three quarters of $1 billion. I love talking about it like we're talking about nickel and dime stuff. Anyway, there's a home school transportation program, and that's going to result in $33 million in one time funding, and then it's going to go up to $239 million every year after that. There are going to be cost of living adjustments, not just to child care programs run by the Department of Social Services. There's also going to be cost of living adjustments to many programs, one of which includes special education child nutrition.

If I read you the list, it would be too long. Seriously, it was a giant paragraph of all the different programs. The one I think would be of most interest to everybody here is the special education child nutrition stuff, and that's going to be about $228 million annually, so just a quarter billion dollars. There was a new bill introduced, some of you may have heard about. It was introduced by Senator Portantino about a year and a half ago, and it looked to screen kiddos in grades kindergarten through second grade to see if they were at risk of any reading difficulties, of dyslexia and that sort of thing, and ultimately, they're going to continue that program and it's going to cost $40 million in one time funds, so that will help with the school district's efforts for a child side.

Additionally, we're getting $23 million allocated for the LA County School wildfire recovery, and we're going to be providing... California's going to be providing a flexible block grant for community colleges, which is going to be $100 million. So these are some of the things that are sprinkled throughout the budget that I just want to make sure people know about. There are two other major areas that I want to cover briefly. One is civil rights and the other is housing. And the reason why I'm talking about civil rights is because, as we know, there's a greater awareness now that people can get hit in multiple ways, multiple discriminatory ways, and we call this intersectionality. If you're a woman, you may be experiencing discrimination. If you're a person with a disability, you may be experiencing discrimination. And if you're a woman with a disability, you're... you may be getting hit twice. And so ultimately, this is why I wanted to cover civil rights. So there's nothing explicit about disabilities here, but I want to make sure that people are aware of this for the very reason I just talked about. So number one, last year's budget created... Anytime you read these budget documents, they say ‘establish.’ It's just ‘creating.’ It's just ‘making,’ ‘creating’ something new.

They created in that budget year in 2025 a bureau for descendants of American slavery, Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery, and they're going to -- at least as proposed in this budget -- fund it permanently, so it's a million bucks, and then it's going to go to $2 million out in 2029, 2030, and every year after that. So right there, a million bucks, two million bucks, that tells me this is staffed at probably -- This is my guess. I'm sure I could look this up if I found it and did a ton of research -- but a million bucks. I don't know what that is. Five positions, plus some money to use for projects, so it... and it exists. So this may be of great interest to some of you in your work. Additionally, the budget proposes to continue the funding and the work of a commission, a statewide commission on the state of hate, and they're going to fund this through 2030, and it's about a million dollars this coming year, and then it's going to go up to $2 million for the following three years, and then in what looks like it may be its final year is $1 million again in 2030/2031.

Lastly is housing. So one of the big things that happened last year, -- You may not even have heard about it, although I've seen a couple of articles about it -- is there was a large effort to reorganize housing, and so a housing and homeless agency was created. Anytime you hear agency, that almost always means there are state departments under that agency. Oftentimes we say agency and department like they're interchangeable, but in terms of state government, nerdy things to know, if you hear agency, typically but not always, it's some sort of overarching organization. I don't want to say department, but group that has state departments under it. And so the California Housing and Homeless Agency has departments dealing with housing and homelessness, and then there's also a housing development finance committee, so they're continuing to reorganize things in that way to try and make it easier to coordinate services.

That's really what this all amounts to. And so one of the things they're doing is shifting funds, so no cost, no increase, no savings, shifting funds to the Housing Development and Finance Committee to be able to administer affordable housing programs, so this is good. Anytime we hear affordable housing programs, typically this will impact people with developmental disabilities, and so anytime we hear that, the impact is generally going to be positive for our crowd. That is the summary as I can describe it. There are lots, lots, and lots of little details. One of the things I want to point out for folks is, you've got the link earlier in the chat for ebudget. Ebudget.ca.gov. You can go there for the full summary.

One of the things I'd like to make sure you know how to do, because you all know, those of you know me know I'd much rather teach you how to fish, and so one of the things that I want to show you in the interest of fishing is I'd like to show you how to pull up other, more detailed information that you wonder, how do people get this stuff, because I read the full budget summary and I can't find the stuff that people talk about sometimes. That's okay. We're going someplace else that you may not know. So what I'm going to do is put my browser on the screen and I just want to show you an example. So right here you should see DDS’ home page, so I'm just using DDS as an example. And you see lots of information, lots of articles, quick links.

Here's what I'm doing. I'm looking for the budget. Now typically, I’m guessing it's under transportation. I mean transparency. And right here is budget information. And when I click that link and I open up the current proposed budget, I can find highlights just for DDS. It's right here. Most, but not all, departments have this kind of detailed work up sheets, I guess. Workbooks. I don't know what you want to call them. Well, why don’t we call it budget highlights? Many departments, but not all, have these budget highlights available where you can read the really nerdy cool stuff. So I say cool because you can not only get the overall budget amounts, but you can get things like the number of positions, and that can be helpful to help you understand what's the capacity of that program. Are there enough staff in that program?

And so... And again, you can see all these budgetary amounts and so on and so forth, so I just wanted to make sure that you knew how to do that, and if you don't know, if you look around and you can't find a budget section on the website, just go to the search box and just put ‘budget.’ You can put ‘governor's budget.’ You should be able to find it if it's available. There's some departments where I generally have trouble finding it or I can't get it, and the two departments that I find that for, most commonly, that I think many of you might care about is Department of Education and Rehabilitation. Those two departments don't seem to post that or I just have trouble finding it.

They... Department of Rehab typically does post stuff a few months after everything has settled down, after the dust has settled down, and so it generally is available going into the new budget year. With that, that's pretty much the summary. I've shown you and told you where you can go to get that additional information, and so I want to come back to Lindsay and see if there are any questions that remain unanswered or that may have arisen, because I really want to make sure that all of you are getting the information that you're looking for. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you so much, always. I... You covered so much. Obviously, it's a state budget. There is a lot to cover, so I'm going to ask questions, and we had questions coming in both before the event and during, a lot of clarifications of some of the things, so I'm probably going to repeat some of the things you said, but then ask for some more details. So I want to start with Medi-Cal.

So it's... As you said, the budget didn't seem to reflect much change for disabled individuals in this proposal who get Medi-Cal via a waiver, yet obviously there have been massive financial changes to Medicaid via HR1, which you outlined, so come May, could the Medi-Cal outlook for disabled people in California look very different for next year, or is it one of those... in a couple of years? I know you're not a fortune teller, but what do we need to be bracing for? The amount of money I could make if I was a fortune teller. I’d be at the horse track every day. So there's a couple of things. I think, first of all, again, I'm eagerly awaiting May Revise. It's... Of course, it's going to come out around May 10th, I believe, is the precise date where it's required to come out, and I'm going to be grabbing that minutes -- if not seconds -- after it's available and writing a new summary. The May Revise is going to tell us everything.

Right now, the... We believe we know everything that we need to know about HR1 and the governor's budget has anticipated that the proposed budget has included that, the work requirements that we talked about, so I don't anticipate any major changes for HR1... we could do to HR1 and Medi-Cal. I don't expect any major changes, even in the next fiscal year, because HR1 sort of laid out what those changes are going to be over time. Now, that doesn't mean to say that Congress couldn't pass another law impacting Medicaid services and funding. That said, I'd say people don't have anything really to worry about in terms of Medi-Cal, Medicaid funded services. Those seem to be accounted for in this year's budget, and there's no reason to think that there would be anything else coming down the line.

And so right now, same thing with waivers, right? Because we had a lot of questions. Just people wanting to make sure that those waivers are secure and there's nothing right now that's threatening those waivers. As far as we know, but in uncertain times and when we hear announcements go from hearing nothing to a week later, plans are laid in motion, who knows? But right this second, no, there's nothing I can point to that I would say you need to be worried about waivers right this second. No, I can't say that. And then, you also talked about the change that will require Medi-Cal eligibility to be reviewed every six months instead of once a year, so are we really going to have to prove that our children are still disabled every six months?

That's... -- Yes. Yes. And again, cost savings are anticipated. It simply means someone's not going to meet the deadline, so this is one that falls on us, right? When you know your redetermination is going, send it certified mail. Send it a minimum of two weeks before the deadline, if not a month before... Don't get anywhere near the red line of losing your benefits because it is completely preventable. It really is. Now that said, is it a bigger hassle? All right. Nobody does that better than you and everybody else here. That said, the intent is to save money, so don't be under any illusions about anything other than it's a more frequent redetermination with anticipated savings coming out on the back end. And those anticipated savings are that families will not get it in in time, and they will then lose services?

-- Correct. Okay. Which is why postmarks are so important and why, again, we're researching and going to be putting out an article soon about how exactly are postmarks working and how can we plan around this, and make sure... For me, right now without having all the details... Again, I don't even want to pretend to know them or say I know them, but if I find out I got a week before the deadline to put it in, I'm putting in three weeks before the deadline. I'm putting a month before the deadline, because these are one of the things where you do not want to have to go through the process of reestablishing eligibility from scratch. It's just... and with so many people... Well, with some people who are going to make mistakes, I think the line to get back into the system is going to be very long. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong about that.

I'd love to know that someone could apply from scratch and have it done in two days, but I think everybody knows it doesn't take two days for that stuff, so... Right. And this is in the perfect world that families or individuals actually get the redetermination in plenty of time to do this, so there's a lot of factors obviously. Exactly. I would... One of the things I would recommend to folks is to track when those deadlines come, because what happens if you don't get informed that you need to submit your paperwork for redetermination? What if there's a clerical error and you never get your letter? What if the post office is delayed for some reason and you don't get your letter? So I would not lay back and sort of wait to be told. I would take a proactive stance.

So for me, what that means... now I'm a dinosaur. I'm going to pull out a paper calendar and I'm writing down a month before the deadline, that stuff has to happen. And so many of you may want to create those kinds of entries in your calendars. I hate being a slave to a calendar, but we are, and so ultimately I would be putting those deadlines in there to make sure you can take sort of affirmative actions in planning to avoid any of these problems from ever arising. Absolutely. And I know we had a question in the Q&A. So just for clarification, you talked about the work requirements, so if you can clarify if those work requirements for Medi-Cal will affect people who are on the waiver with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So as far as we know right now, there is an exception that indicates that people with disabilities are going to be exempted from these work requirements.

Many folks still have questions about exactly how this is going to work and what the definition and qualifiers and all that stuff should be. The early indicators are that people with developmental disabilities are largely going to be exempted from this required, so... but we're still looking for the details, and ultimately when they're made available, we will certainly be promoting them as well as we know. Oh, well, you... everybody else will make sure that the word is out so folks know, but right now, we understand as a general exemption and from now we're just looking for the details. And Monica did have a follow up about the deadline. How do we know when our redetermination date is? Where can parents find that? -- Look up the last time you had a deadline come up, figure it out six months from that time, truly.

Because, again, anything you can do to avoid a problem arising is going to be... Think about the extra work you've got to do to track this stuff versus the extra work you would have to do to reestablish eligibility if you got booted from the program. So I wish I had a better answer for you, but that's the best I can do. Yeah. And I will do a shameless plug, because if you have an Undivided account and in the account, if you have dates, it will automatically send you... It will send you reminders, so if you are like me for IEP, it's like, hey, starting to look at that prep, IPP, all of this. We're all going to have to be incredibly organized because there's so many factors into the fact that we can't just sort of trust the process and that they're going to let us know.

So, all right, Regional Center. It sounds like there were really few changes to Regional Center that you were going over. What is at risk in the May Revise for Regional Center? Anything? I don't anticipate anything. The only risk that exists in May Revise is if we find out there are far fewer... and I mean far fewer dollars less than what is expected coming into the state. That's the only real risk for Regional Center or any particular department or system. There's nothing anticipated, and I think that's a relative... not even relatively. It's a very safe statement to make, given that, as you point out, there are very, very few changes being proposed in the current budget. If anything, there's that $8 million in savings from the shut down of Fairview, and so ultimately it's looking really good for May Revise. Okay. Great. I did want to ask about... There's another new policy that's being funded, the HCBS access rule, which would be getting $2.4 million, nine new positions to implement a new grievance process, so I just wanted you... I don't know if you want to just briefly explain that to families. What departments this grievance process covers?

Essentially, what is this? What do we need to know? Are you talking about the sort of unified complaint process that's being developed at DDS? Yes, I think I saw it on your highlights, so that's why... -- Yeah. So what it is is DDS is unifying the complaint and grievance processes, so there is sort of a way to... You can make a complaint, like a rights based complaint. Some of you know this as a 4731 complaint. There are whistleblower complaints. There are general citizens’ complaints. There are... There's a bunch of different procedures with each one. You got to fill out the correct form.

If you fill out a complaint for one process, but it sounds like you're describing a certain kind of complaint, but it's not the right one, now you got to go back and fill out another form, so what this is doing is essentially unifying everything under a singular process so that... or this is the project that's underway right now to unify it, so there is no longer that, “Well, you filled out the wrong form, sorry. Oh, and it took us a month to get back to you. Sorry about that.” This is to really streamline the processes and ensure that people can get their concerns, their complaints, their grievances addressed, and so rest assured that you will see trainings from our department, from... and I'm confident Undivided, DRC, and all the usual suspects will be out there providing information about exactly what is the process, how does it work, what kinds of stuff is covered with it, because again, we want to make sure that people are able to exercise their rights and advocate for themselves in the best way possible.

Absolutely. We did have a question, again, just a clarification. No proposed changes to Early Start, correct, Chris? -- Correct, correct. There was absolutely nothing in the budget about Early Start or any kind of... excuse me, any kind of changes to Early Start. Nothing. Okay, great. -- Yeah. And by far, the most questions we received ahead of time were all about Self-Determination or SDP. I did want to ask, because some advocates are still stressing the reduction of $45 million for SDP, despite DDS saying that that's actually going to have no impact on the program, so I just wanted to know if you could outline sort of what that funding reduction entails and how it will affect individuals and families, if at all.

So, yeah... So I think many of us heard about this as the $22 million savings last year or the current year that we're sitting in, and it would be 45 million every year thereafter. I don't know. I just simply don't know. I don't know how that's being implemented. If DDS is saying don't worry, don't worry. Wonderful. I'd like some detail, so I know personally I don't have to worry. That said, awesome. I mean, great, but I don't know any details at all about how that's being done, whether it's administrative or... I don't even want to throw ideas out there because I really just don't know. Okay, so we just need to keep following up and asking questions because... Yeah. And the other thing too is that, look, the Lanterman Act is the Lanterman Act is the Lanterman Act, which is based on needs. It's based on creating a person centered plan and creating the life that you want to have, so keep advocating in the way that you have been before. It's not to say don't ask questions about the budget. I'll never say that. That will just make you more informed.

That said, keep advocating the way you're advocating. Keep growing your skills, keep growing your ability to be a strong advocate for yourself or for your kids, because the bottom line is that will always be necessary, period, so... And if we're hearing pushback when it comes to budgets with SDP because of budget concerns, per our conversation today though, it sounds like we aren't facing budget cuts currently, so that isn't something that should be entering into the conversation when we're having budget... Correct. If it's a state that's made then again, just do... you can say, “Here are the needs based on the person centered planning process and we're going to stick to needing services to be able to meet those goals that are developed in the IPP.” And Chris, do you have five minutes or so to go over? Do you have some time?

Okay, good. I didn't know if it was a hard out at 11, because I really wanted to get some clarification on the IHSS, so all right. So can you clarify, this is all around the county's picking up some of the bill from the state for IHSS starting in 2027. So can you clarify, does this mean that for all existing IHSS recipients that the state pays for existing hours, but if the family asks for increased hours, the county pays that difference? That's number one. That's my understanding, starting with 26 or 27/28 fiscal year. Let me... I’m double checking that because I don't... -- I think that's... wrong information. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is too.

So bottom line is that, yeah, the counties will will be picking that cost up, and I've got... Yeah, 27/28 is when it starts, so the concern that I have is many of our offices, if not every single one, has received calls concerning the assessment process... the annual assessment process for hours with IHSS, even to the point where some of our offices have been told that assessment... There was an attempt to contact the family, and yet the family never got a voicemail, never got a phone call, and then they found their hours had been adjusted, and so some advocacy had to be done around that.

Or people have indicated, yeah, there's an increased need and it's very difficult to get that increase converted over to an increase in hours, and so consequently, just with those barriers and difficulties existing right this second before this change even takes effect, I'm especially concerned about the impact that this is going to have on IHSS recipients, and... which is why I'd like to, again, keep encouraging people, learn your rights, learn how to advocate for yourself, get out there and get as many trainings as you can under your belt so you can learn this stuff and be able to be a strong advocate, even in the face of these changes. Again, IHSS is a program designed to keep people in their own homes and out of a nursing home, and so keeping that in mind, what is necessary, what is required, and that kind of creates a slightly different conversation then trying to look at every single leaf that exists in the forest, which is learning your rights and all the technical strategies.

Don't ever forget, it's to keep your family member or yourself in your home. That's a big deal. -- Absolutely. And so what about new families? Does the state... How are we going to handle new families? Is that all coming out of the county, or does the state pay for those families as well? Well, specifically it says, ‘increases in services,’ so my expectation would be... My expectation... We'll see how it really plays out, but I think logically what that means is people who come into the system in 27/28 or thereafter, their hours are their hours and the state will pick up the full cost, and it's only going to be increases after that. It is entirely possible and within the realm of possibility, but I think unlikely, but this is more my opinion than what we actually know is in 27/28, someone new to the system, that's an increase to IHSS hours.

You went from zero to hours, so therefore the county got... There’s no way that's going... I can't imagine that happening. That said, if that makes sense to you and seems like a possibility, okay, maybe it is, and this may need to be a clarifying question that should be posed in front of budget committees, or we need to look for additional reports that are available. So one of the places I go to to understand the budget in more detail and... I would strongly recommend it. Look, if any of this nerdy stuff I've said resonates with anybody, go to the LAO’s office, so LAO, Legislative Analyst's Office, they're nonpartisan. They do analysis about the budget, the implications, the impacts, and they also talk about how... They talk about the history. They get into everything, and there's a million reports on their websites. Many of the things that I know about the way these systems work, I would... I don't want to give a percentage, but a large percentage of what I know came from LAO reports, so please, I encourage everybody to go to that website and just devour it.

Seriously, just devour it. A lot of reports on IHSS came out ten... I know that I'm talking ancient history now, ten, 15 years ago, but they're very useful in a sense of understanding why does the program exist as it does. Why does it function the way it does? What are the inefficiencies in the system? What are the efficiencies? And that all will give you a fantastic context for the reports that you read about today, and it's just reading. Now, that said, all right, not everybody can carve out a lot of time to read. Some people hate reading. I get it. But the information is there. And lastly, don't forget about tools that may be helpful. You can dump a PDF into AI online tools like ChatGPT and say, “Give me the top five headlines,” and it can give you that information, so don't be afraid to use those tools either, while still double checking with experts to make sure that the AI didn't mess up, because we know they can make up information and we usually get bitten hard when that happens, so...

It sounds like we need to push in for a little further clarification on the county's picking up the bill. We've definitely heard from a lot of parents who have started hearing of this as a possibility. They're worried that county workers could feel increased pressure to deny services if the county is picking up the tab, and counties like L.A. County are reeling from a year of wildfires and historic sex abuse settlement payouts, so we just need to continue to ask for this clarification because I think you even said this in your overview, I mean, where is this money going to come from? From the counties. And how much does that...? And I know you said, who knows, you gave that 200 and some million across all counties, because what does that really realistically look look like for counties? Yeah, we have no idea.

Yeah, I would expect LA, San Francisco, Marin... I wish I could name every county, but I mean, all the... I think the urban counties... Or I shouldn't even say urban, but highly densely populated counties, they're going to... they're just going to have more recipients in their area, so I think there's just going to be an increased cost to them compared to more rural counties where there are fewer recipients. Right. And I do just... HCBS programs are... We keep hearing over and over that these programs are considered nonessential and could be major targets from those HR1 cuts, and so I know you've kind of said this in different ways, but I guess I have to ask again, these... coming in 2027, but what is most at risk, Chris?

Oh, gosh. Well, I would say the things that are outlined in the proposed budget that we talked about. I mean, the... Medi-Cal, because of the work requirements, because of the frequent redeterminations. These are things that put those services at risk. For additional risks, they're unknown unknowns at this point, and so ultimately, I would stay focused on what we're seeing in the proposed budget and the things that people can do to ensure that they continue to receive services, and then keep your ears to the ground, and when we hear of proposals being done, you can rest assured, I think many of you are aware of the efforts the Council and others have done to educate people about Medicaid, about cuts, proposed cuts to Medicaid, and eventually what HR1 actually did, we will be continuing those efforts in order to make sure folks are educated and well aware so that they can engage in advocacy before these proposals are initiated, and to understand what those changes are after, if they do come to pass, like with HR1.

Yeah. Thank you. Question about a clarification. So special education, I know you touched on, right? And school districts are also feeling these county and state deficit concerns. Parents are feeling the strain during IEPs as we're hearing about district budget cuts, but the proposed budget suggests this increase to special education base rates, so our team reached out to the CDE and confirmed that currently only one SELPA in the state was receiving more than the base rate of $917 per ADA. The proposed budget increase would work towards equalization across LDA, something that SELPAs have been advocating for for years, and raise the rate for all SELPAs from that 917 to a little over $998 per ADA, just correct me if I got that wrong, but this feels like good news, but is this enough to support special ed departments across the state? I hope it is. -- Right direction at least, right? Exactly. It's definitely the right direction and increase is wonderful.

That is great. And is it sufficient? I don't know. Based on the conversations I've had with families, there's always a need for special ed services. There's always a need to engage in good advocacy at IEP meetings because of the challenges and difficulties that are conveyed to me to get services, so I think that need for advocacy is going to continue regardless of what the dollar amount... Look, if the dollar amount were tripled, great. Maybe we wouldn't see these kinds of issues, but we don't have an infinite budget, and I was gonna say we can't just print money, okay? We can, but that won't... but printing money won't get us out of any sort of fiscal realities, and so the bottom line is keep doing good advocacy. Yes, the budget is moving in the right direction. It's certainly good news.

Is it enough? I don't know, I would.... I don't want to hazard a guess, but you all know what I would say. So, instead I would say, do good advocacy, keep learning about your rights, keep learning about how to construct a good IEP using strategy. There are a lot of resources out there from Undivided, from us, our IEP strategy guide. There are a number... DRC, certainly. I think everybody knows the Special Ed Rights and Responsibilities manual, so keep reading, keep learning, keep growing your capacities because these are transferable skills. When you learn how to advocate in one system then it kind of just becomes about learning the details of the other system, but that style of advocacy is something you carry with you everywhere you go. It's perfect. Perfectly said. I also wanted to give you the chance, because I know there's some bills that State Council is behind.

Is there anything that you want to highlight for families that we need to be advocating for? Oh, gosh. Stay tuned, stay tuned. One of the things that I want to do is... We're undertaking a couple of projects right now. So one is to try and get a list together of all the bills that would be of interest to folks, period. There are a number of bills that the council has taken a position on. We took a position on 19 bills just last calendar year, and I expect that we'll be taking positions on at least the same number coming up. Those bills, I want to make sure that folks are aware of, because certainly one of the biggest things that I think people can be aware of is using their voices.

All too often I hear from people, which really disappoints me, really does, is when people say, “Oh, there's nothing we can do to change that. That's just a way that...” No! Nonsense. That is so complete nonsense. I can't even say. I mean, I just heard there is one airline that has canceled their federal government contract recently because people were protesting and using their voices and getting loud, so if you're not familiar with that, just look that up. Federal government, airline, it is... You see a bunch of stuff. Bottom line is it's a great example, and there's a million examples out there of how things have been proposed. People pushed back using their voices, and we're able to stop those things from coming to pass.

Writing your legislators and engaging with them, meeting with them, talking to them about the things you care about, about specific bills, has a far greater impact than anybody on this call would ever get, item line, because I see some of the names, some of you know exactly how effective that work can be, but do it. If you don't believe it, please join the movement, join others, use your voice and ultimately you will start to see what that impact can be. Read the news. Nobody reads a newspaper. Read news sites and look at the things that never come to pass or the things that do come to pass, because people are using their voices. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is inevitable. Well, all right, death and taxes, but it's... Yeah, I mean I think that's a perfect way to wrap up, Chris, is there anything else that you want to say in these uncertain times that we should be doing today, between now and May, that families, providers... that we need to be really concerned about, keeping our eye on, anything specific that we really need to be digging into and mentioning to our legislators.

I would say, look at the things that are most concerning to you in the proposed budget. Create that relationship with your legislators now. If you don't have a relationship with your legislator, use this as an excuse to create that relation. Just say, “Hey, look, there's this thing here, and I know it could have been worse, and I appreciate the fact that it's not so bad. There's this thing going on that's wonderful. There's this thing that's going on that's going to impact my life. Let me tell you how.” Stories drive decisions. I know this sounds... Statistics appeal to people's brains. Stories appeal to their hearts. Stories are what drives decisions. We all know what is... What do we say? Goals drive services, right? How many times have you heard in your advocacy, no goal, no service, right? Well, stories are the systemic equivalent, the systemic advocacy equivalent of goals, so tell your story. You are an expert on your story. No one can say you're wrong. No one can say you're full of it. Well, I mean, they could say whatever they want, but that wouldn't be true.

At the end of the day, you are the expert on your story, so become good. Learn how to become good. Learn how to tell your story well. Be good at telling your stories, because if you can make a roomful of people cry, if you can make a roomful of people throw their arms up and go, “Heck yeah,” you need to be doing this as much as possible. And if you can't do that, that's fine. Add your voice. Say what they said. “Me too.” So, add me to the list of people. I am... You now have heard from two people. 500 people show up. They can say, “I'm number 500. Yes.” Do that or don't do that. So add your voice, add your voice, develop your... It's a skill just like anything else. Everybody gets better with practice. Nobody's good at... Anybody who's good at drawing, good at creating art, you know what your first art look like? It was garbage, right? It did not look good, but the bottom line is you close that gap to being able to create what you wanted, which sat in your brain.

Advocacy and telling your story is the exact same thing, so get inspired here from other people, study techniques, right? I love Jon Stewart. Surprise, surprise. My trainings have a little touch of Jon Stewart in those... in my trainings, so don't be afraid to copy other people too. Don't be afraid to really just take what makes you you and put that in front of people and make them hear your story. All right, enough, I'm doing my thing. I need to stop. -- No. It's amazing. I have to say, I mean, many, many moons ago, I went to Chris Arroyo trainings on how to tell your story, and I know the State Council still does those trainings, so check out their website, look for those trainings because like Chris said, it can be really intimidating, but it's important. I mean, your story matters, and I mean, I... and I know we're over time. Chris, thank you so much.

I mean, even because... Even when things sound good, which I know it sounds good and you're saying that, but it's that piece in me and I know every parent on here... and things... and every provider, everybody, when things sound good, it's not always the whole story, so thank you for laying things out so clearly despite many unknowns, and times of transition can be extremely stressful for our families, as we've all been talking about, as it feels like we have to brace every four years to see what priorities, compromises, and ideals will be voted into office, our stomachs drop when we hear budget deficit in our state or country, knowing that many of you are children as costs to be cut, their services as nonessential, or their community inclusion is optional, so when our kids are relegated to line items that are up for negotiation and their services, which are lifelines treated as disposable, it tends to agitate, terrify and, like Chris said, hopefully rally our community because right now, 17 states are challenging disability civil rights protections under section 504 in federal court.

The Department of Education, which I'm sure everyone knows, oversees our children's special education rights... It's being dismantled. Rights without enforcement don't protect our children, and those rights could be even harder to enforce, since disability rights attorneys are also at risk of being dramatically cut at the federal level. Here in California, we're facing provider shortages. Rural hospitals are struggling to stay open. Thankfully, help is coming for this, as Chris mentioned, and Medi-Cal rates haven't kept up with the cost of care, and together that means fewer services and longer waits for families, so what happens next cannot just depend on policy alone. It will depend on whose voices are part of the conversation, which means if you're listening, that's you, and if you're thinking, like Chris said, I don't usually get involved or I don't know that my voice matters, the system changes because of people exactly like you.

Not all at once, not perfectly, but every time someone decides not to stay silent. I know here at Undivided, as well as many of our partner organizations, we have teams watching around the clock for updates. We're going to be listening as Chris and the State Council let us know when it's time to speak up. Spoiler alert, as Chris said, as often and as loudly as you can. Thank you again to Chris, the State Council, all of our partner organizations, and all of you for being here today, but we're here if you need us and we will see you out there.

We'll see you soon. Bye.