State budget pain being felt

The impact of California's six-week overdue budget has trickled down to the community level, with $3 billion in paychecks and bills going unpaid by month's end. Harrison Sheppard in the Daily News.

Among the most vulnerable are nursing homes, child-care providers and other small operations that depend on the state for the bulk of their income.

Some 11,000 nursing homes and adult day health care providers have missed one weekly Medi-Cal payment totaling $228 million and will miss another totaling $212 million today. That makes it tough, operators say, to pay salaries or other bills.

"We are hurting really bad right now," said Eduardo Gonzalez, owner of the Fillmore Convalescent Center in Ventura County, which has missed a $46,000 Medi-Cal payment due from the state.