The Governor just signed the budget and as expected, he vetoed the additional dollars that the budget sub-committee put in for Adult Protective Services, which means that the program will not be fully funded, yet again.
As you may recall this program has never been fully funded, so fewer senior citizens the ability to have a place to call if they are being abused by a caretaker or family member. This program was intended to help seniors by having additional resources to help investigate complaints and stop the abuses from happening again.
The Governor also vetoed money for the Naturalization Services Program, bringing its funding level back down to the original dollar amount that he included in his January budget. This program was funded at $3 million and we were successful at getting an increase through the subcommittee process of $2 million for a total of $5 million. We had been able to get it funded in both houses, keeping it out of Conference Committee.
With the Governor’s $2 million cut, our NSP programs will not serve nearly as many immigrants as we could have with the additional funds.
As we are able to better analyze the budget we will send out another update.
