SAN FRANCISCO — In a reversal, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a stopgap bill on Wednesday to restore financing to the California’s shelters for victims of domestic violence.
Mr. Schwarzenegger eliminated money for the shelters in late July with a line-item veto as the state struggled to close the remainder of a $24 billion budget hole. The veto stripped the 94 nonprofit groups that run the state’s shelters of about $200,000, causing most to curtail services and a few to close altogether.
Mr. Schwarzenegger said he had never wanted to cut domestic violence programs but was forced to by the Legislature’s inability to give him a fully balanced budget.
On Wednesday, however, his message was more positive, praising the stopgap bill as a “creative solution to keep these shelters open,” adding that the state needed to find permanent funding solution for the programs.
The bill he signed is not a permanent fix but rather a loan, diverting $16.3 million from an alternative fuel and technology fund to the state general fund. That money must be repaid by June 2013. Full story in the New York Times
