Calif. Conservation Corps Threatened by Budget Ax
February 10, 2009
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed shutting down the California Conservation Corps, which employs hundreds of often-troubled teens and young adults to work for minimum wage on environmental, disaster-response, and community projects, to help close the state’s $42-billion budget gap, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The plan would save $17-million and shift the corps’s work to a dozen nonprofit conservation organizations across the state.
A bipartisan group of four former California governors — including Jerry Brown, who founded the corps in 1976 — signed a letter last week urging Governor Schwarzenegger to reconsider the decision.
