A new program created by California’s consumer protection agency aims to provide free, personalized help for Golden State borrowers struggling to navigate the complex, byzantine student loan system.

The Student Loan Empowerment Network is designed to provide financial coaching and assistance for borrowers, including help securing income-based repayment plans and federal student loan forgiveness for those working in public service jobs.

“The student loan system is fraught with systemic issues that make it practically difficult, if not impossible, for people to get the rights and benefits they’re supposed to be entitled to under the law,” said Suzanne Martindale, the senior deputy commissioner for consumer financial protection at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

Martindale said in many cases, borrowers might be eligible for some form of loan relief, but don’t know how to access it because “the information hasn’t been clear, because the goalposts keep changing, because the loan servicers can’t seem to give you an accurate answer.”

“People need somewhere to go to get accurate, fair information, working with someone who cares about their best financial interests,” Martindale said.

Borrowers who want help from the program can fill out an intake form at studentloanhelp.dfpi.ca.gov or call (888) 774-2227.

Borrowers will be connected with a financial counseling agency or legal aid agency. In Los Angeles, those include Public Counsel, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and the Koreatown Youth & Community Center.

The program will offer a mix of webinars and financial coaching sessions. Some borrowers with “very complex legal issues” may require one-on-one help, including those who have older private loans from defunct issuers, or have been in default on their loans, Martindale said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2022-2023 budget set aside $7.25 million for the student loan assistance and education program and $2.25 million for a statewide marketing campaign.

The organizations working on the loan program will be required to track the number of people who switch to income-based payment plans, document their employment for public service loan forgiveness and have their loans discharged, Martindale said.

Helping Californians reduce their loan burdens using publicly available programs can have a major economic benefit for the state, she said. She said she hopes the program becomes a permanent fixture in the state, although the looming shortfall makes that less certain.

After the pandemic-era freeze on student debt expired last year, about 40% of borrowers with federal student loans missed their first monthly payment last fall, according to federal data.

Borrowers who are delinquent on their federal loans won’t be reported to credit bureaus until Sept. 30 of this year, but in the meantime, interest continues to accrue.

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Last month the Democrat unveiled his budget for the next fiscal year, admitting that ‘difficult decisions’ are needed to address the state’s deficit – including a 1.6 percent reduction in the state’s Department of Justice’s overall funding.

The proposed budget includes a $97 million cut to trial court operations, $10 million to the Department of Justice’s Division of Law Enforcement and over $80 million to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as reported by Fox News.

Newsom’s plan comes as major national stores and local businesses in California say they continue to face rampant theft. Videos of large-scale thefts, in which groups of individuals brazenly rush into stores and take goods in plain sight, have often gone viral.

Crime data shows the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles saw a steady increase in shoplifting between 2021 and 2022. Across the state, shoplifting rates rose during the same time period but were still lower than the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, while commercial burglaries and robberies have become more prevalent in urban counties.

Meanwhile homelessness jumped 6 percent to more than 180,000 people in California last year, federal data show. And since 2013, the numbers have exploded by 53 percent with the state accounting for a third of America’s entire homeless population.

The state’s criminal justice record which saw the number of violent crimes jump by 27 percent between 2013 and 2022, and pickpocketing more than double.

This is the second year in a row the nation’s most populous state is facing a multibillion-dollar shortfall. State revenues have continued to fall amid increasing inflation and a slowdown in the state’s usually robust technology industry.

Officially, Newsom said the state’s deficit is $27.6 billion. But really, it’s closer to $45 billion when including previous spending reductions that Newsom and the state Legislature agreed to in March.

Including reductions in public education spending, which Newsom has not included, the deficit would be even billions of dollars more, according to recent analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

A spokesperson for Newsom told Fox News in a statement: ‘The budget proposes numerous ways to make government more efficient and reduce costs for taxpayers, including cuts on inmate spending.

‘Since Governor Newsom took office in 2019, the state has made record investments in law enforcement, including $1.1 billion to tackle crime, support police, and hold criminals accountable.’

So far, Newsom has not gutted some of his splashiest policy advancements, including free kindergarten for all 4-year-olds and free health insurance for all low-income adults regardless of their immigration status.

But as Friday’s proposal showed, Newsom is willing to chip away at some of those promises to balance the budget.

While Newsom has not taken away health insurance from anyone, he proposed the state stop paying for health care workers to care for some 14,000 disabled immigrants in their home. That would save the state $94.7 million. While he hasn’t pulled back the state’s commitment to expanded kindergarten, he proposed eliminating $550 million that would have helped school districts build the facilities they need to teach all of those extra students.

After promising to pay for child care for another 146,000 children from low-income families, Newsom on Friday proposed pausing that expansion at 119,000. And after promising to boost how much money doctor’s get to treat Medicaid patients, Newsom on Friday proposed canceling $6.7 billion that had been set aside to do that.

In total, Newsom is proposing $32.8 billion in cuts over two years, including eliminating 10,000 unfilled state jobs and an 8 percent cut to state operations — including things like eliminating landlines. He promised there would be no layoffs, furloughs or salary cuts for the state’s more than 221,000 state workers.

The size of the deficit is important as it will shape the national perspectives of Newsom, who is a top surrogate for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and who is widely believed to harbor presidential aspirations of his own.

Newsom has spent much of his time in office basking in the glow of historic budget surpluses that allowed him to greatly expand state spending. But back-to-back budget deficits — with more on the horizon — are testing California’s commitment to those increases.

Newsom had enjoyed unprecedented surplus budgets of more than $100 billion throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. But the past two years have saddled him with a pair of multibillion-dollar deficits, a less-welcome position for a governor seen as a potential future Democratic presidential candidate.

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