Judge Upholds County’s Cuts in General Relief Payments

Los Angeles County acted lawfully when it sharply reduced monthly general relief payments for single adults to $212 effective Sept. 1, a judge ruled Tuesday.

“I think it’s a terrible tragedy that they’re asking people to live on $212 a month,” said Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne. “I think that’s an impossible situation.”

Nevertheless, Wayne rejected a request by anti-poverty groups for a preliminary injunction on behalf of more than 100,000 general relief recipients.

The groups were asking that the county be ordered to restore payments to the $285 monthly minimum that state law requires.

The county, facing a severe budget shortfall, has justified going below the minimum by valuing at $73 a month the free medical care it makes available to the poor.

The legal issue Wayne had to decide was whether state law allows counties to count the value of health care as part of the fulfillment of their obligation to provide general relief. Los Angeles is the only county in the state to do so.

Senior Deputy County Counsel Ada Treiger argued that the state Court of Appeal has already addressed the issue, ruling in a 1992 case involving Contra Costa County that it is permissible.

Contra Costa County wanted to reduce its cash outlays by deducting the value of shelter it provided for the homeless.

In ruling for Contra Costa County, the Court of Appeal said the Legislature intended to allow counties to count the total value of services they provide to indigents, including health care, as part of the minimum grant, Treiger said.

Richard Rothschild, representing anti-poverty groups led by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, argued that the state Legislature did not intend for counties to include the value of health care.

Wayne said she found Rothschild’s analysis “compelling,” but she was bound to follow the decision of the higher court.

Rothschild said general relief recipients will appeal.

Los Angeles County officials have said that a state shift in hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes this year from counties to school districts left them little choice but to cut general relief. They said that after trimming the budgets of every county department, they had to choose between cutting general relief and making even more disastrous cuts in health care services.

Wayne termed the supervisors’ decision “shortsighted.”

She apparently was referring to predictions that the cuts will lead to a surge in homelessness.