Laying out a grim snapshot of the county’s economy on Wednesday, Alameda County officials said that that budget cuts advocated by the governor will make things much worse for residents depending on county services.

Among other things, the state budget cutting would affect 80,000 to 100,000 Alameda County Medi-Cal recipients by placing a cap on services, including doctor and clinic visits and prescriptions and caps on supplies. It would eliminate adult day health funding, leading to the closure of nine centers in Alameda County serving more than 880 frail seniors and adults with disabilities.

About the same number of Alameda County Medi-Cal recipients also would see caps on services, including doctor/clinic visits and prescriptions, as well as caps on supplies of medical equipment, hearing aids, over-the-counter drugs and more.

In a Feb. 3 letter addressed to Governor Jerry Brown, Alameda County Supervisors Keith Carson and Wilma Chan write that the new caps on services and supplies, elimination of adult day care, reduction in provider payments and new co-payments will “result in a significant loss of life, care and coverage.”

California and the Bay Area have been hit especially hard during the country’s great recession. The county unemployment rate is 10.8 percent, while the state unemployment rate is 12.3 percent, according a presentation dubbed “The Worst is Yet to Come” at the State Office Building in downtown Oakland on Wednesday. (Oakland’s unemployment rate of 16.3 percent is the highest in Alameda County).

Analyst Kai Mander of the county administrator’s office pointed out more troubling statistics:  The collapse of the housing market has dramatically reduced property taxes, while in 2010 the county saw 6,000 foreclosures – just four years ago, the number of foreclosures numbered in the hundreds.

Sales taxes saw an 8 percent decrease in 2010, with a 13 percent drop the year before. Mander said the county hopes to see a modest increase in sales taxes this year or next.

The downturn in the economy has pummeled the state economy as well, which has a $25.4 billion shortfall. In response, Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed $12.5 billion in cuts, but the state budget woes could become even worse if voters fail to approve about $12 billion in temporary tax increases in a June special election.

While the county has seen a decrease in revenue, it has seen an increased demand on its services, such as CalWORKS, food stamps and Medi-Cal. CalWorks has about 20,000 caseloads, up from 16,000 in 2003; Medi-Cal has 80,000, up from about 60,000; and the number of people using food stamps has skyrocketed to more than 40,000, up from more than 8,000 in 2003.

In a preliminary estimate of some of the impacts to Alameda County by Brown’s budget, county residents would see the following impacts:

20,500 CalWorks recipients would be affected and over four years, an estimated 4,000 families would lose their benefits, totaling $24 million.

Child care would be eliminated for 370 families with children aged 11 to 12 years old.

Reduced social security and supplemental security income grants would affect about 39,000 recipients, resulting in lost income of $7 million.

In-home support services would be cut by 8.4 percent, affecting about 18,000 providers and 18,000 recipients in the county. This is in addition to the 3.6 percent reduction in hours that became effective in February as part of the 2010-2011 budget.

“While we understand the need to make painful cuts,” reads the letter from the county, “we believe the proposals will result in loss of life, greater homelessness and greater crime in our county.”

More information about the Alameda County budget can be found online at www.acgov.org/budget.htm.

About Alan Lopez

Alan Lopez is a writer and reporter with long experience in community reporting. He lives and bikes in Oakland.