Worsening budget shortfalls will prompt many state lawmakers to ask a basic question when they return to work in January: What must government provide its citizens?

In all but a handful of states, that list is already growing shorter, resulting in fewer health benefits for the poor, the closure of parks and recreation centers and more inmates being crammed into ever-more crowded prisons.

Demand is simultaneously on the rise for Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits even as the delivery of these and other services is complicated by recent layoffs or furloughs for tens of thousands of state employees.

In addition to deep spending cuts, legislators are enacting or considering higher fees for public colleges, new tariffs on everything from soda to strippers, and other measures intended to offset shrinking revenues from sales, real estate and income taxes.

“This is shaping up as the worst year for the states since the (Second World) War,” said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Reductions sought

In many cases, programs already hit by cuts can, at best, expect these reductions to stay in place through fiscal year 2010. That is because lawmakers crafting budgets typically allot the same amount as was committed at the end of the previous year.

Those dependent on services facing cutbacks are expressing feelings ranging from vulnerability to anger:

• Activists in South Carolina, where steep health care cuts already are being made, fear lawmakers will cut a $1 million HIV prevention program that pays for 39 church-based education initiatives.

“I know the state has to cut, and we’re in a tough time, but … in 10 years, we’re stuck with a problem that’s unbelievable if they put that particular dilemma on the back burner,” said the Rev. Thurmond Bowens Jr., whose 650-member Trinity Baptist in Columbia runs one of the programs.

• Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire wants to shrink a $5.7 billion budget gap projected for the next two fiscal years. Among the cuts Gregoire wants to make is $20 million in state funding for programs that provide part-time care to those with Alzheimer’s and other chronic health conditions.

“I am astounded, just astounded that Gov. Gregoire would eliminate it … these are the most vulnerable, the elderly, the ill,” said 61-year-old Richard Lundgren, who used such a center outside Seattle twice a week for his wife who has Alzheimer’s.

• In Georgia, Taiye Oladipo, a senior at the University of Georgia, is scrambling to come up with an additional $100 spring semester fee tacked on by the Board of Regents to help with that state’s budget shortfall. Officials are unsure whether the fee will continue, but that’s no help for students such as Oladipo.

“The student fee will definitely come out of my pocket,” she said.

• In Ohio, 54-year-old Lisa Wayne of Fredericktown said budget cuts forced her in June to retire early. Wayne, who worked as an activity therapist for 31 years at a state agency that helps people with mental disabilities, said keeping her job would have meant cuts in pay, hours and days off.

But after watching the value of her retirement savings deteriorate as stock markets cratered, Wayne, who lives with her brother and boyfriend, is now trying to find another job. “If I had lived by myself, I probably would have had to sell my house,” she said.

The roots of states’ budget woes include: plunging real estate values and home sales; a near collapse of the auto industry; a devastated stock market; and rising unemployment.

Budget gaps

Forty-one states and Washington D.C., faced combined budget gaps exceeding $42 billion after fiscal year 2009 spending plans were approved, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The situation could be almost twice as bad the following fiscal year based on early estimates 38 states provided to the center.

Six states — most of which benefited from oil and natural gas production — projected no budget gap for the current or next fiscal year, according to the center. However, falling energy prices could alter that equation.

The challenge facing governors will be made easier by a federal stimulus package that President-elect Barack Obama has said would deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in transportation and infrastructure funds. However, that will not eliminate the likelihood of significant cutbacks in a wide range of services.

“Ultimately, it gets us back to what is government here for,” said Georgia state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, a conservative Republican who sits on the Appropriations Committee.