TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Fifty-eight dollars is chump-change for some -- maybe a lunch out with the family or a cheap seat and a beer at Dodger Stadium.

But for retirees John and Shirley Collier -- and 1.3 million other Californians -- money cut from their Supplemental Security Income may mean choosing between skimping on medication or skipping meals at the end of each month.

"I just don't think it's right to pick on seniors who have worked and paid taxes their entire lives," said Mr. Collier, a 67-year-old retired vocational nurse from Bakersfield.

"I don't care if it's $5 or $58," he said. "I don't want somebody doing something that will affect my life without consulting me on it first."

Fifty-eight dollars -- $26 each -- is the amount the state will cut from the Colliers' SSI check beginning next month. But they and other recipients can expect an additional 2.3 percent cut beginning July 1, thanks to the mother of all budget crises in California.

Without these and other cuts, the state was facing a budget gap projected to balloon to $40 billion by July 2010.

"Everything was cut. Everything," state Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, said of the budget agreement reached earlier this year that also sliced heavily into education and other core funding.

"These were difficult but necessary reductions," Ashburn said.

Mike Herald, a legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law & Poverty in Sacramento, said Central Valley communities are expected to be hit particularly hard by the cuts.

With the valley's higher unemployment numbers and more SSI recipients per capita than other areas in California, the cuts could dampen the effect of an intended economic stimulus, he said, by taking money out of the hands of those who typically spend 100 percent of their payment every month.

"People on SSI frequently run out of food at the end of the month," Herald said. "Those who run out on the 25th of each month, they may start running out sooner, maybe on the 22nd or 21st."

Fred Evans, a 60-year-old truck driver who was disabled in a work-related accident in 1994, was receiving $907 in SSI.

The cut in May will reduce his monthly check to $870. When the second ax falls in July, it will chop off another $20.

"What do I do now?" Evans asked. "I'm going to have to tighten my belt a little bit more."

But Evans already lives in a modest trailer in what he says is a "bad area" in old Oildale. He doesn't own a car because he can't afford one.

"I'm not eating steak, that's for sure," he said.

Virginia Gantong, director of client services at Kern Regional Center, said many of the center's clients as well as clients of Bakersfield Association for Retarded Citizens, will be affected by the cuts to the developmentally disabled.

"It's going to affect a lot of clients -- adults and children," she said. "Fifty-eight dollars may not be a lot to some of us, but for many of our families, this is what they use for survival."

As letters announcing the cuts began to reach recipients this month, the phones at Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance started to ring more often, said GBLA Executive Director Estela Casas.

SSI recipients will soon receive a check for $250 from federal stimulus monies, which will provide a temporary cushion for some, Casas said. But that won't last.

"Unfortunately in some instances, people may have to choose between paying for medicine and paying rent," she said.

According to the letters being sent to recipients, "You do not have the right to appeal the state's decision to reduce payments for its residents."