California's budget shortfall is leaving legislators little room to maneuver.

To make up a looming deficit estimated as high as $15.2 billion, many tough choices are going to have to be made.

Neither Democrats or Republicans have come together with a compromise plan that will satisfy the voting public's desire to keep taxes as low as possible while preserving worthy programs.

Already the outcries are heard from organizations that provide needed services that are ultimately cost-effective.

One such organization is Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, which is spreading the word about what will be lost if funding is cut to preschool, juvenile mental health, substance abuse, intervention and stay-in-school programs.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is a national and state anti-crime organization that includes more than 350 county sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and crime survivors working to increase high school graduation rates by ensuring children have access to the kinds of services and programs now endangered.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Steve Robbins and District Attorney Bob Lee are both members. Lee, a latecomer to the group, now is an ardent believer in the goals, pointing to recent headlines in the Sentinel about a Live Oak gang shooting, where the suspected gunman is a high school dropout.

Lee, who graduated from Soquel High, recently joined a booster club at that school, with the purpose of
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working with parents to do more to keep kids in school and get parents more involved.

Graduation rates clearly affect crime rates, he said. A 10 percent increase in high school graduation rates -- the current dropout rate is about 33 percent statewide -- would lead to a 20 percent reduction statewide in murders and aggravated, felony assaults.

Raising the high school graduation rate 10 percent locally would mean 161 fewer felony assaults committed by dropouts. Santa Cruz County schools and government stand to lose millions of dollars in funding to provide early child education, early intervention, after-school programs and juvenile crime reduction programs.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids points out that providing quality preschools also has a dramatic effect on keeping at-risk kids in school -- with an estimated 40 percent more staying in high school through graduation.

Many programs targeting at-risk kids are on the chopping block, however, including $188 million slated for quality preschool and child care.

In addition, programs such as Santa Cruz County's Juvenile MICOR program, which works to identify and get help for kids with mental-health and substance-abuse problems while transitioning them after treatment back into school, face having their funding cut.

A series of worthwhile bills are pending in the Legislature that, if passed, would also need funding. Among them:

• SB 1629, authored by state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which would work toward improving the quality of early-learning programs; and,
  
• SB 1298, authored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, which would establish a commission to evaluate programs that are working to improve graduation rates in the state's high schools.

Other bills would increase the state's goals for improving graduation rates and provide incentives for schools to help students who need extra time to graduate.

Long term, as District Attorney Lee points out, the cost to all Californians of cutting programs that work to keep kids in school would be catastrophic.

Boosting high school graduation rates cuts crime, and one of the primary purposes of government is to keep our streets and neighborhoods safe.

That's why legislators must continue to fight for programs that will keep kids in school.

For more information, visit Fight Crime: Invest in Kids' Web site at www.fightcrime.org.