Steinberg calls for social services shift to California counties

(From the sacbee.com) As he stares into the abyss of a $19.1 billion state budget shortfall, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg is urging Californians to consider an earth-shifting governmental move. To help social services such as child welfare and elder care avoid massive cuts, he wants to transfer more responsibility for those programs from the state to counties.

“If anybody thinks that we can triage our way through another chapter of the state budget, I wholeheartedly disagree,” Steinberg, a Sacramento Democrat, said in an interview.

“The argument will be made that restructuring, realignment is too complicated,” he said. “But compared to what? I don’t see a pathway that doesn’t involve significant restructuring of what the state should do, and what other entities of government should do.”

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