By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times

January 5, 2011

The metamorphosis is as quick as the turn of a page: John Zickefoose is a hyperactive goose, a laid-back bear, a monkey, a tiger. The children at the Corona Public Library squeal with laughter as the man whose name rhymes with Seuss becomes louder and more animated.

There was a time when reading the simple words of a picture book would have proved impossible for Zickefoose. He spent years in school overwhelmed with sadness that nothing came as easily to him as it did for others. He would become rowdy, preferring to be kicked out of class than to be called on by the teacher.

Zickefoose was functionally illiterate, unable to read a prescription label, his children’s report cards or a menu. He was diagnosed as a young boy with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and didn’t learn to read and write until he was 35.

That’s when everything changed. He became a poster boy for the Corona library’s adult reading program, began to speak publicly about his own struggles and was named the library’s literacy director. He founded a nonprofit youth organization.

And on Dec. 7, Zickefoose, 52, was sworn in as a member of the Corona-Norco Unified School District Board of Education.

For the boy who couldn’t understand the words on his high school diploma, the journey to the school board was the culmination of a vow to do something meaningful in life and help prevent others from starting out as he did.

“I’ll be able to bring, quite frankly, an unusual perspective of what it feels like to be in the classroom and be a failure,” Zickefoose said. “I don’t want any child to go through what I went through.”

–

For years, even his wife wasn’t aware of the severity of his limitations.

He would wish there was a magic pill he could take to make his disabilities disappear. The lowest point, he said, came when he couldn’t understand his 7- year-old’s homework assignments. When Shawn asked for help, Zickefoose sat with him at the kitchen table. But when Zickefoose looked at the textbook, all he saw were letters strung together that made no sense.

When he tried to fake his way through a bedtime story, his son would tell him, “No, Dad, that’s not what it says.” The little boy had no idea he was making him feel that he was failing as a father.

It was then that Zickefoose resolved to enroll in an adult literacy class at the Corona library. He was embarrassed and angry at himself. He had always been able to hide his illiteracy and wriggle out of uncomfortable situations. Now he believed there was no other option.

It didn’t go well at first. Zickefoose insisted on starting with more complicated sentences and words than he was ready for, out of embarrassment. He wanted to cancel on his first day. This is stupid, he thought. He was incapable of learning.

But his tutor persuaded him to start with the basic building blocks of reading and writing. The one-on-one interaction was just what he needed.

Within six months, he was reading novels and nonfiction.

An estimated 30 million American adults can’t read a newspaper or fill out a job application. Many have learning disabilities. Others are dropouts, victims of failing school systems. Some are immigrants with deficient English language skills who may also be illiterate in their native tongues.

But Zickefoose is also an anomaly. Only about 5% of adults who need services receive them, mainly because there is still so much shame attached to the condition, said David C. Harvey, president and chief executive of ProLiteracy, an international advocacy group. Zickefoose serves on the board of directors.

“John is a national role model because one of the most effective ways to break down that stigma is to have people who have had this problem talk about it,” Harvey said. “He’s a shining example of what can happen when someone gets services and puts those new skills to work.”

–

Zickefoose was brought up in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst, and his father and stepmother tried hard to help him. He blamed himself for his failures, not his teachers, whom he says were supportive and wanted him to succeed.

He went to specialists in Chicago who identified his problems in school but couldn’t provide a solution.

“They have come so much further now in dealing with learning disabilities in a more efficient and productive manner,” Zickefoose said. ” Back then, they were good at diagnosing but they didn’t have the tools to address it.”

Once, in the fifth grade, he raised his hand to answer a question and was devastated when he got the answer wrong and a friend answered it correctly. Looking at a sign, a book or a newspaper was like being in a foreign country, confronted with a totally alien language, he said. Without the code, he couldn’t master math or science or any other subject.

Still, he managed to scrape by with Ds and to graduate. Most states, in the late 1970s, did not require students to pass math and English tests to receive a diploma.

He got his driver’s license in Illinois after taking the written part orally. He memorized such symbols as street signs and he had friends fill out job applications.

At 19, he bought a station wagon and moved to California, where his mother lived. He drove a truck for several years and then got a job restoring houses. He met Eileen, the woman who would become his wife. He managed to start his own restoration business, but that failed after a few years and he went to work for another company.

Eileen noticed that he always had a large wad of cash, not checks. He didn’t have a bank account. “That would have taken skills to manage,” she said recently.

–

He didn’t think she really understood how serious his problems were. She thought he just didn’t want to bother with paperwork or the bills. It was the only source of tension in their relationship. Once, Zickefoose tried to make her understand that he really couldn’t read. “You don’t get it, I can’t do it,” he told her.

Even now, she said, it’s hard for her to believe his reading ability was so limited.

“He just seemed to do fine,” she said. “He learned to compensate. If we went to a restaurant, he [already] knew what to order off a menu or he could tell by the pictures. When he couldn’t, he would just order a hamburger.”

“I was pretty good at faking it,” Zickefoose said, “and it shows the depths of it that even with the woman I loved and cherished, I still felt I couldn’t tell her.”

During that time he hurt his back severely. But he continued working through the pain because he was terrified of being forced to find another job that might reveal his illiteracy.

“At that point I was 35, scared — panicked — and had no idea how I was going to get by.”

He eventually had back surgery and went on disability. With Eileen’s encouragement, he enrolled in the library’s literacy program.

–

Mike Catellier had slipped and hurt his back while working as a store manager at a local supermarket. With time on his hands, he volunteered as a tutor at the Corona library. Zickefoose was the first adult with whom he worked.

There was an immediate bond: Both men were the same age, both married with children, and Catellier was facing back surgery.

“He was such a humble guy and so apologetic,” recalled Catellier, now a Florida resident. “I think I convinced him not to be embarrassed and we got comfortable. He was very motivated…. He would meet me as often as I was able to come.”

After so many years of torment, it turned out that Zickefoose was a quick study.

“John had stuff stored in his memory that I don’t think he realized,” Catellier said. “We started with first-grade books and basic vowel sounds, but we were able to move way faster through the material. He gives me credit, but it was really just me helping him focus on things, giving him strategies in finding books that he liked.”

Zickefoose had always been interested in public speaking, and both he and Catellier joined Toastmasters. Zickefoose would dictate speeches and he and Catellier would work on concepts and words. As he improved, Zickefoose began writing himself.

He was still being tutored when he joined a book group at the library. He can’t remember the first book he tackled. He remembers having to ask Catellier to help. But as the group discussed passages, he was overcome with a sense of accomplishment and well-being. Hey, check me out, he thought.

–

The experience was transforming. One of the first serious books he remembers reading is “Black Like Me,” the true story of a white Texan who passed as black in the segregated south in the late 1950s. He was struck by the tale of living as an outcast.

“A new life sounds dramatic, but that’s really how it was,” he said. “Most people couldn’t tell you when they learned to read, it just happened. But I can tell you exactly when the light bulb came on.”

Now outreach coordinator at the library, Zickefoose appears to be straight-arrow, business-minded, even professorial. But his tie, with an imprint of the Looney Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil, hints at a whimsical nature.

He formed UNITY (United Neighbors Involving Today’s Youth) in 1996, and it has evolved into a coalition of 80 public and private agencies that have secured more than $17 million for the Corona-Norco school district. A generation of students know him as Mr. Z from his appearances at school assemblies where he preaches perseverance, using his own life as an example.

As a school board member, Zickefoose wants to prepare students earlier for college and a career and to pursue more outside funds for such school programs as arts and music.

“If a parent comes in with a child that is struggling, I feel like I can understand that at a very emotional level,” Zickefoose said. “We want to find the positive qualities that a child has and enhance those.”

No one is prouder of Zickefoose than his sons, Shawn, 24, a firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service in Redding, and Adam, 21, who will enter the Navy in February.

They were still young when Zickefoose began speaking publicly about his illiteracy, and they grew up hearing stories about how they had to help their father read.

Adam said his only surprise was learning how his dad was able to get through school. When Adam was growing up, his father was such a mainstay at the library that his friends thought he owned it. They thought he was cool.

“I was never afraid to tell anybody,” Adam said. “If anyone was having trouble reading, I’d tell them my dad couldn’t even read his diploma.”

carla.rivera@latimes.com

County’s literacy program marks 25 years of helping adults read

FREMONT — It never mattered to Ray Ennes that he wasn’t much of a student. When graduation day came more than 30 years ago, he landed a good construction job and never looked back.

Until now.

After more than two decades as a drywall finisher, Ennes had little choice but to take early retirement because his union was about to reduce pension benefits significantly as result of the economic downturn.

Because most of the jobs he wants require written tests or report-writing duties, Ennes, a 51-year-old Newark resident, decided to enroll in Alameda County Library’s Write to Read adult literacy class.

“In construction, I didn’t have to spell or read or write too much,” he said. “When I got here, I couldn’t even do the crossword puzzles. Now, I’m getting pretty good.”

The literacy program, celebrating its 25th anniversary this week, has helped more than 8,000 county residents improve their job prospects, helped them assist their kids with homework, and even helped them read the Bible.

“Our purpose is to get students enough confidence so that they want to continue learning,” said Luis Kong, the program’s director.

Write to Read offers adult education classes in every main branch of the county library system. The program includes classes in literacy, computer skills, life skills and finance. It also offers English conversation groups for immigrants.

Literacy classes, like the one Ennes attends in Fremont, meet once a week for four months.

On Tuesday, instructor Marisa Masatsugu started off the two-hour lesson with a crossword puzzle and then gave instructions on introductory clauses to help students write longer sentences.

The students are a joy for Masatsugu, a retired elementary school special education teacher.

“These adults, they want to be here,” she said. “You don’t have to fight them to learn.”

Denise Cintrone, 39, enrolled last year at the urging of her brother, who already had enrolled.

“Now that my girl is in the second grade, I can help her because we’re learning some of the same things, and I can understand it better,” she said.

Cintrone, who has had retail jobs in Fremont for much of the last 20 years, mostly reads the sports sections of local newspapers, but has more bookish aspirations.

“My goal is, I would love to read Shakespeare or the King James Bible,” she said.

The literacy program has a budget of about $500,000 a year, which pays for six employees, four teachers, and about 35 tutors. nnual enrollment has nearly doubled in the past three years to nearly 250 students, which Kong attributes to the struggling economy and an improved promotional effort.

He’s hoping to expand access to computer labs and offer more life skills classes.

Ennes said the class has been a valuable refresher after 30 years of not have to read or write very much.

“It’s just really preparing me for going on to another career,” he said. “I’m more confident when I’m filling out applications.”

Interested tutors are encouraged to call Kong at 510-745-1484.

The program is holding a party for former students and volunteers 6:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Fremont Main Library, 2400 Stevenson Blvd.

Published January 31, 2010 @ 11:12AM PT

change.org  - Poverty in America

It’s well-established that low-income students are much less likely than their more affluent counterparts to receive a challenging, fulfilling education. When one group of students is at a disadvantage from the beginning, they don’t perform as well on the standardized tests required to graduate from high school and they are more likely to have behavioral problems leading to punishment in school. But could those factors actually push low-income students toward prison?

A new report from the civil rights group Advancement Project concludes that high-stakes standardized tests and zero-tolerance policies in public schools have created a direct school-to-prison pipeline for many low-income students and students of color. These disadvantaged students are being forced out of their schools, whether by overly harsh punishments for their infractions or by being held back because they failed a standardized test. And when school is no longer an option, many of those disenfranchised teenagers turn to crime. High school dropouts are eight times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers who graduate.

The report documents the dramatic rise in police presence at schools over the past several years, calling students the most “policed” group in the country after actual inmates. Unsurprisingly, the schools with the heaviest police presence are the most “troubled” ones — in other words, inner-city schools where poor students of color often receive little more than a cursory education. “The results have been devastating,” the report’s authors write, “as across the country there have been dramatic increases in the use of lengthy out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, referrals to alternative schools, referrals to law enforcement and school-based arrests.”

Although standardized tests and school discipline procedures rarely are considered together, the Advancement Project researchers argue that they are the two major complementary factors pushing kids out of school. Making state tests required for graduation has been a major effect of the disastrous No Child Left Behind Act, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wants to link them to teacher pay as well (the latest New Yorker includes a great read about Duncan’s philosophy on standardized tests). The problem is that those tests discriminate against poor students and those of color. They are more likely to study in schools with fewer resources and be taught by underqualified teachers throughout their educational career, not to mention have problems out of school, like serious hunger, that affect their ability to focus. In many states, students who fail the standardized tests early in high school are held back a grade. And being held back has been shown to be the single largest predictor of dropping out.

After eight years, No Child Left Behind has compounded many problems in American public schools and created others, leaving them nearly as dysfunctional as the country’s criminal justice system. Perhaps under new leadership America will finally end the direct pipeline from one to the other.

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The Prisoners’ Right-to-Read Statement: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights

When a society, living under the rule of law, decides to segregate certain of its members—for the safety of society, for the protection or treatment of the person, or to correct the behavior of the person—the right to read, to access knowledge and information, does not disappear on the institution’s doorstep. Prohibition of materials should only occur in order to ensure the safety and security of residents and staff and based on those restrictions required by law. While such reasonable limits may restrict the range of material available, the extent of limitation should be minimized by strict adherence to clear and universal guidelines.

Prison, jail, detention center, and mental health facility libraries may be required by the rules of parent agency rules or federal, state, or local laws to prohibit material that:

• instructs, incites, or advocates criminal action (bomb making or escape);
• instructs, incites, or advocates bodily harm (murder or suicide);
• or is itself a violation of law (obscenity or child pornography).

Prohibiting material for any other reason is censorship.  Because material may depict or describe criminal activity, harm to persons, or violations of law should not be a reason to censor it.  Because material may contain unpopular views or even repugnant content is not a reason to censor it.  The U.S. Supreme Court has found that only when material advocates or promotes illegal behavior or activities should First Amendment rights be limited by the need for security, order, and rehabilitation.

Censorship is an exclusive process by which authority rejects specific points of view. Selection is an inclusive process. It is the search for the best of materials, regardless of medium, that present diversity and a broad spectrum of ideas. While accepting that we can not afford everything of value, our collection must reflect the needs of community and strive to meet those needs.

Unfettered access to information is essential those who wish to prosper within a democratic society. As unfettered as practical access to information is even more essential to persons held against their will, if they are to restore themselves whole to society. Suppression of ideas does not prepare the incarcerated for transition to freedom.

Even those who a lawful society chooses to exclude permanently deserve a role in the human struggle and that role requires access to information, to literature, and to a window on the world, no matter how narrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his opinion for Procunier v Martinez [416 US 428 (1974)] :

When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end; nor is his quest for self-realization concluded.  If anything, the needs for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.

Officials may wish to believe that prisoners think differently than people in the free population or believe that books make a prisoner have bad thoughts.  The reality is that prisoners accurately reflect free society. Their flawed actions placed prisoners in need of correction and only new information, new insigh­­t—not isolation and punishment—can provide that correction.

It is a library’s obligation to make available materials that provide a broad range of diverse beliefs and opinions.  In that way a library counters negative books with positive books, helps replace harmful thoughts with beneficial ones.  Libraries are in the business of providing information to increase the likelihood of reasoned thinking, encourage investigatory research, and promote critical thinking, so that people can reach their own conclusions rather than be limited to the imposed ideas of others.  It is the responsibility of the library to teach users how to access and how evaluate material, not its job to tell them what to think.

It is important that a library reflect the needs of its community.  For prisoners, those needs may appear to be challenging the conditions of confinement, preparing or appealing their cases, overcoming mental health issues, and preparing to transition from incarceration to society.  In fact prisoners have a more diverse set of needs than people in a free population but much less access to vital information and ideas.  Library and correctional facility staffs must respect the wide range of needs in their populations.  It is not the function of a library to collect only material that support the values and mission of the agency or its leader but rather to provide for the multi-faceted needs of their population within the limitations and restrictions inherent in restricted environments. It is not the librarian’s responsibility to build a collection around individual tastes, whether those of staff or the incarcerated, or to meet perceived mental health needs but rather to build a collection and provide resources for the community as a whole.

Lists of approved books, titles reviewed by an agency or facility and determined to be acceptable for prisoner use, may prove satisfactory starting points, however a library should not be limited to purchasing only previously reviewed and approved materials.  Libraries must be allowed to purchase books in advance of agency or facility review and be trusted to follow guidelines in determining whether those books should be added to the library collection. Libraries must be allowed to solicit materials from a wide range of sources in order to ensure a broad and diverse collection.

Lists of censored books must include the rule or regulation which the content of the book violates, specific reference to the text that is censored, enough information about the source document that the librarian can confirm it is an exact copy, and the assurance that a high-level official of the parent agency sanctioned the censorship.  This assures that library collections include more than those materials deemed “good for them,” and that repugnant content is not the sole reason for material to be censored.

There shall be no ban on sexually explicit material unless the content is in violation of law, that is it is obscene or it is child pornography.  In order to designate sexually explicit material obscene and a violation of the law, the material must meet all of the following criteria: the average person, applying contemporary standards, would find that the material appeals to the prurient interest in sex; it depicts or describes certain sexual acts defined in local law in a patently offensive way; and a reasonable person would find that the material lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. While the library would not seek material for it sexually explicit content neither would it exclude material from its collection because of such content.

There shall be no prohibition on materials in any foreign language.  Based on the needs of a given population, based on the ethnic or linguistic demographic of that population, the library should make all reasonable efforts to provide sufficient materials to meet the needs of non-English fluent prisoners.

Redaction is a form of censorship and shall only be employed if required to allow access to information to that would otherwise be justifiably restricted by the rule of law or the safety and security of the institution.

There shall be no ban on certain types of media.  Each medium has its purpose and to reject a medium could make it impossible to add certain material to a collection. The institutional reluctance to provide opportunities for the introduction or maintenance of contraband in library materials such as hardbound or paperbound books, disks, tape cassettes, or playback devices can be overcome by the use of technology. Electronic devices and fluoroscopes can pierce the any potential hiding place and allow materials into a library where the library staff can control the security of items that might afford opportunities for contraband to be hidden or ability to hurt self or others. Creative thinking and use of resources can expand library collections to a variety of media.

While unfettered access to the Internet via person computers may be impractical, the correctional library shall provide access to information from the Internet and knowledge of the sources available through it. If practical, controlled access to the Internet and to e-mail accounts shall be provided as an adjunct of the services of the library.

We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read for all who live in our democracy and a right to read for those persons with just or unjust limits on their freedom.

Just as we believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture, we believe that restoration of a held person to family, friends, and freedom requires real and minimally limited communication and access to knowledge.

The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. It is one civil right not lost at sentencing for criminal behavior no matter how heinous the crime. While the institution may impose restrictions on the right to read within narrow limitations, the basic right to read, to write, to think, should not be impaired.

Those with faith in people, in the ultimate decency of humankind, will stand firm on the constitutional guarantees of these essential rights. Those who cherish their full freedom and rights will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights and they will work to see the right to read, to write, and to think, extended to those in juvenile facilities, jails, detention facilities, prisons, state hospitals, mental institutions, immigration segregation facilities, and prison work camps.

We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society and destroys the hopes of those segregated from society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours. When free people segregate some of their own, they acquire the responsibility to provide the tools required to bring the prodigal home. Chief among those tools is a right to read.

November 16, 2009
When CBS correspondent Byron Pitts was 12 years old, he had a debilitating stutter and a terrible secret: he couldn’t read. In his new memoir, Step Out On Nothing, Pitts describes how, with faith and the help of family and friends, he overcame illiteracy to become an award-winning correspondent holding one of the top jobs in broadcast journalism.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120463986

As I have written in previous posts on this site, I think the book  on which the movie was based was amazing and a must read for every Adult Literacy tutor, especially those working with inmates. I was saddened yet invigorated by this remarkable book both times I read it – a kind of  “the sea is so wide and my boat is so small” reaction.

I have worked in jails for many years, and have heard the story of Clarieece “Precious” Jones all too many times. I have high hopes that this movie, already pegged for Oscar honors, will motivate more to give some time to improving the literacy skills of someone, somewhere…

U.S. illiteracy: Why Johnny still can’t read

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

By the time he was 17, Antonio Rocha had bounced among 11 New York City schools and was reading at a first-grade level.It wasn’t until he told school officials “I want a lawyer!” that things began to change.

 With the help of an advocacy group, Rocha pressured the city to pay for 480 hours of private tutoring, which eventually helped him read at a functional level. Now 20 and working for United Parcel Service, he’s one of three people profiled (and the only one comfortable with being identified) in WNYC Radio reporter Beth Fertig’s new book, Why Cant U Teach Me 2 Read?.

“Compensatory education” complaints are increasingly being used by parents who say school districts have a legal responsibility to educate children in spite of disabilities. The 2002 No Child Left Behind law dictated that schools must use “research-based” programs to teach these children to read, says Philadelphia-area attorney Dennis McAndrews. Reading comes naturally for many children, he says, but not for Rocha and others: “Putting print in front of them and hoping they’ll crack the code is useless.”

 Labeled, by turns, learning-disabled, speech-impaired, emotionally disturbed and even mentally retarded, Rocha admits to Fertig, “I just gave up on myself.”

 In an interview, he says he always felt odd sitting in class with students who could read: “I felt like I didn’t belong there.”

 Administrators say they never “knowingly” placed him into inappropriate classes or schools. They say Rocha “had chosen to give up on his own education” by rarely showing up to classes, according to a transcript of the hearing included in Fertig’s book. But Fertig’s account indicates Rocha floundered for years in a system that was simply overwhelmed.

 Hanging out in lower Manhattan one September morning in 2001, Rocha, then 12, witnessed the World Trade Center attacks from three blocks away and vowed to join the military. But five years later, he could still barely do simple work.

 ”I’m about to be 18 years old in seven months and, what, twenty-something days?” he told a hearing officer. “And I don’t want to turn 18 years old and not learn how to read. … I’m supposed to graduate high school. I’m supposed to go to the military. Where am I now? Where am I now?”

 Later, as he left his last tutoring session clutching a paperback children’s biography of John F. Kennedy, Rocha rode the subway home with Fertig. He read the back cover aloud and tried to sum up his feelings: “It hurts,” he said. “But it hurts like in a good happiness. I feel like a regular kid now.”

 http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-10-14-illiteracy_N.htm 

by Chris Metinko
Oakland Tribune

With state officials ready to approve a budget to close a $26.3 billion shortfall in Sacramento, Alameda County leaders will have to head back to work to try to balance the budget on a local level.

The budget deal set to be approved in Sacramento calls for $4.3 billion to be diverted from local governments into the state’s finances. Alameda County will lose about $84 million in tax money over the next two years, said County Administrator Susan Muranishi.

The biggest hit will come from the state’s borrowing of nearly $2 billion in property tax money that goes to local governments. Alameda County will lose $40 million from that cut alone. In addition, the county stands to lose $35 million in gas tax money and $9 million in redevelopment money to the state over the next two years.

“There is no way we can look in to forecast and tell people we are not in for a rough ride,” said Supervisor Keith Carson at Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting.

Carson added that some of the details of the new state budget deal still are not clear — likely even to those in Sacramento — but that it is clear local governments will lose out.

To that end, Alameda County supervisors agreed Tuesday to join what likely will be a joint lawsuit with many other counties against the governor and the state finance director to try to get back gas tax money, which funds the county’s public works department.

Despite the lawsuit, county officials know they will have to go without.

 ”We’re clearly at the bottom of the food chain,” Muranishi said. “Clearly we’re going to have a lot of work to do locally.”

Just last month the board of supervisors approved a $2.4 billion budget that closed a $178 million shortfall — the largest ever for the county — and included program cuts and layoffs.

The county budget cut 285 of the county’s 9,316 full-time-equivalent positions, including about 100 positions in the Sheriff’s Office. Many of the job cuts will come from positions already eliminated within the past year, as well as positions currently vacant. Less than half the job cuts will come via layoffs.

The cuts to the county’s Public Protection program, which includes the Sheriff’s Office, were the largest. The county’s Probation Department lost 49 positions, the District Attorney’s Office lost 14 attorney positions, and the Public Defender’s Office lost 15 jobs.

Public protection was not the only affected program area. The county’s health care services cut $30 million from their budgets but avoided layoffs.

The county’s public assistance programs weren’t as lucky, losing $45 million from their budgets and losing 10 vacant positions.

Barbara Baran,Vicky Lovell

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Barbara Baran is a senior fellow with the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan public policy research group. Vicky Lovell is a senior policy analyst with the California Budget Project. For more information, go to www.cbp.org

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/EDGV18GK9E.DTL&type=printable

This article appeared on page A – 11 of the San Francisco Chronicle