BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Cutting funds for the elderly, needy and disabled will not only hurt those people -- but actually cost the state jobs. That's the message from a group opposed to the budget proposal released by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday.

Jenise Miller is a Medi-Cal recipient who lost benefits in the governor's last round of budget cuts, and she had a message for Schwarzenegger.

"I voted for you, why do you want to hurt my by taking away our disability resources?"

She was joined in Bakersfield on Friday morning by a group who said they represent health and human service providers, faith leaders and working families.

"This is such an important subject to these people that are going to be affected by this budget again," added Brandy Morgan, a spokeswoman with the Independent Living Center.

The governor's $83 billion spending plan would provide for the lowest general funding spending in six years. He will make up for a steep drop in tax revenue and deal with a $20 billion deficit partly by cutting health and human services, welfare, transportation and environmental programs.

Last summer, Eyewitness News heard from Rosetta Brown, 90. She needs help from In-Home Supportive Services, and state funding for that was cut in the last budget round. A worker comes in to do light house-work and help with errands. That allows Brown to stay in her home. Her assistance continued, only through county funding.

The group of advocates said the cuts to the most-needy budget compound problems, they don't solve them.

"These have all had a snow-balling effect," said Nancy Gomez, from Health Access. "They have never been able to balance the budget, they've in fact made the budget worse."

Rosetta Brown gets the in-home help she needs through the Linkages program. But Friday, Linkages spokeswoman Ann Bertsch told Eyewitness News the agency has already laid off one worker, and two more will be gone after June.

That's another that kind of impact that also has the group concerned. They say cuts to health and human service programs mean the loss of help, and also the loss of jobs. And that's bad for the state's economy.

"It doesn't affect just the health care workers that do the jobs," Brandy Morgan said. "What about the people that are disabled and have jobs that got off social security with that program?"

And, of course there are the direct impacts of cuts to health service programs.

Jenise Miller said her Denti-Cal benefits were cut by the governor's budget last year.

"If they cut Medi-Cal, Denti-Cal, and medical services for me -- what am I going to do in the future if I get a cavity? Where am I going to be then?"

A transcript of the governor's Friday speech shows he wants to balance the budget with cuts, shifts in funding and alternative revenue, and getting $6.9 billion in federal funds. He starts with the painful reductions the advocates oppose.

"The first piece is $8.5 billion in spending cuts, mostly to health and human services, employee compensation and prisons," reads the speech.

In that section, Schwarzenegger outlines $1.1 billion in cuts to Medi-Cal from increasing cost-sharing and reducing eligibility and combating fraud, $950 million in cuts to In-Home Supportive Services by reducing the state's contribution to wages and reducing services, and $130 million in cuts to Cal Works.

Nancy Gomez said cuts like that are exactly what her group opposes.

"We believe the governor needs to do his very best to protect the safety net, he has practically shredded it to pieces," she said.

The group, Health Access, had a report they say shows the impacts from health and human services cuts in the 2009-10 state budget.

"Just six months into the 2009 budget, hundreds of thousands of Californians have been denied care or coverage for key services, and the health system we rely on is crumbling, with five clinics closing," reads their report. "These cuts are starting to ripple through the health system and our economy, as we lose health jobs and federal matching funds, and people don't get the help they need to get through these tough times."

Gomez said the cuts proposed for the coming budget would be devastating, and have real and human consequences.

"This governor too many times balanced the the budget on the backs of the most unfortunate, the disabled, our seniors, our children," Gomez said. "People who can ill afford more cuts at this time."