Nearly 100 people marched outside the Daily News offices in Woodland Hills as part of a coordinated effort to generate publicity about the cuts, which could affect an estimated 12,000 developmentally disabled people in the San Fernando Valley.

"People that are capable of working and living in the community with support will lose that support and fall back on a higher degree of services and end up costing more money," said Stephen Miller, executive director of Tierra del Sol Foundation, a Sunland-based nonprofit agency that provides job training and other services to the disabled.

"We don't have lobbyists. All we can do is try and be visible and try to get people to understand it's their tax dollars," Miller said.

The protests were timed to correspond with hearings in Sacramento on Gov. Gray Davis' $96 billion budget proposal.

Most of the developmentally disabled services in California are provided through a network of nearly 200 nonprofit job training, residential and transportation organizations.

The governor's budget would result in a 9 percent reduction to each nonprofit, Miller said. That cut, coupled with reductions in Medi-Cal and Social Security benefits, would limit the resources developmentally disabled men and women could tap into.

"I don't want to lose my job," said Bill Seymour, 42, who has been able to work at a Goodwill store sorting clothing with the help of the transportation and job training programs that would be affected by the cuts.

Christine Lupes, the mother of a 5-year-old daughter with autism, said the funding cuts could threaten a generation of autistic children who might otherwise become productive members of society with social skills and behavioral training now.

"Kids with autism, they are fixable kids," Lupes said. "Society and state of California, pay now or pay later."

Service providers will host a town hall meeting on the budget cuts from 10 a.m. to noon June 6 at the Van Nuys State Office Building, 6150 Van Nuys Blvd.