California Democrats want Gavin Newsom to close more prisons over cutting child care, welfare

California Democrats worried about deeper child care and social safety net cuts in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget want the state to instead close more prisons.

That way, they argue, there would be more funding for the programs in jeopardy.

Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblyman Corey Jackson, D-Moreno Valley, have concerns about Newsom’s plan to cut money from programs that provide food assistance, help foster youth and subsidize child care, among others.

The assemblymen are joining with organizations urging leaders to find ways to preserve funding for those priorities.

Whether they’ll be heard as the legislature considers the state budget is uncertain. The Bee reached out to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, for a comment on the prison closure proposal, but had not received a response by deadline.

Advocates for more safety net funding said one approach to get more money would be to close five more prisons, as the Legislative Analyst’s Office suggested in February.

The LAO reported California prisons would operate with 15,000 empty beds during the 2024-2025 fiscal year, which would reach 19,000 by 2028. The five prison closures could save the state $1 billion annually, according to the LAO.

Newsom’s revised budget proposes deactivating 46 prison housing units with 4,600 beds, which would result in $80.6 million in savings.

Bryan said that’s not enough.

“The state is literally running a 15,000-person empty hotel through the state prisons,” Bryan said. “That’s expected to grow in vacancies. And we’re not looking at closing it. In fact, we’re looking at the need to maintain it because of the structural poverty we’re creating throughout California that might result in more people going to prison.”

Prison closures are also a Legislative Black Caucus priority, said Chair Lori Wilson, a Democratic assemblywoman from Suisun City. Wilson said the caucus brought it up to the governor when they met with him to discuss their budget priorities.

“When you look at the (Democratic) caucus, it’s something that the majority of our caucus members actually support,” Wilson said. “Prison closures as a way to not just save revenue, but in a sense of a value statement of the direction that California is moving, in terms of doing more things to provide programs to prevent people from going in prison in the first place.”

Wilson said the conversation is less focused on whether to close prisons and more on how to make it happen in a way that everyone supports, taking into account those work at the facilities.

Newsom has begun the process of closing three prisons during his time in office, as well as several prison yards. But lawmakers in recent years have pushed him to close more, citing the cost savings and empty beds.

“We have to be mindful that our prison population is not static,” said Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a Newsom spokeswoman, in a statement. “As the governor said at last Friday’s press conference, none of these solutions were made easily or lightly. The administration seeks to close the shortfall while maintaining core programs and base benefits.”

Social safety net cuts

Andrew Cheyne of End Child Poverty in California said his organization worries about additional cuts to state welfare program CalWORKs and multiple food assistance initiatives.

The governor’s revised budget includes more than $170 million in cuts to two CalWORKS programs that support impoverished families with infant children and help those with mental health and substance abuse issues. That builds on $293 million in CalWORKS cuts he proposed in his January budget, according to the LAO.

In addition to delaying a food assistance expansion for undocumented Californians 55 and older, Newsom’s spending proposal would cut $15 million from CalFresh, the state’s food stamp program. That funding would have enacted a pilot initiative to increase participants’ minimum monthly assistance from $23 per month to $50.

Cheyne also cited the pause on a subsidized child care program that was to add 200,000 slots. The governor’s revised budget would pause the expansion indefinitely at 119,000 new slots until economic conditions improve.

“When these resources go away, it is life and death,” Cheyne said. “It pushes families past the brink. And we know from the Great Recession that it could take years to restore some of these vital services. And so that underscores the urgency of our message to adopt a budget that prevents these cuts this year.”

Jackson, who chairs the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Human Services, said maintaining foster care programs and CalWORKS is important, as those are the programs “that are designed to keep people out of homelessness, to make sure that they have their food that they need.”

The governor in January proposed more than $50 million in cuts to programs providing a hotline and rental housing assistance for foster youth.

Jackson said his main priority is to “ensure that we do not cut programs that begin to destabilize our population.”

“Our No. 1 priority as a state should be to keep our population stable and to save programs that will continue to bring people out of a state of crisis or survival mode,” he said.