AUSTIN — At first glance, the blueprint for the state spending plan that lawmakers will write next year draws a bleak picture of slashed services for child-abuse prevention, care for expectant and new mothers, and even longer waiting lists for frail Texans seeking in-home nursing care.

[And] closer inspection shows that the leaders of the state's social services agencies will ask for substantial increases in funding because caseloads continue to escalate and the rising cost of healthcare shows no sign of slowing down.

"We really feel like we've consolidated our operations where it was appropriate and achieved most of the efficiencies we were asked to achieve during 2003 legislative session, when we faced the $10 billion shortfall," said Stephanie Goodman, spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. "But the need for services continues."

The commission, which oversees an alphabet-soup mix of agencies that administers programs for frail, elderly and needy Texans, consumes nearly 35 percent of all state spending. Like virtually every other arm of state government, the commission's agencies were directed to submit baseline budgets for the 2008-09 spending cycle that cuts expenses by 10 percent in most cases.

The directive, issued by Gov. Rick Perry, was prompted by the need to remind the bureaucracy that taxpayers expect their money to be spent wisely, the governor's spokeswoman said.

Under the baseline budget for the health human services agencies, the cuts would further fray a social safety net that's already overstretched, critics said.

"Texas is already last or next to last in what it spends on social services," said Eva DeLuna, a budget analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a think tank that advocates for moderate- and low-income Texans. "How much lower can we go?"

Under the 2008-09 baseline budget recently submitted by the social service agencies:

Child-abuse prevention programs would be cut by 53.5 percent.

Prenatal care for women in the late stages of pregnancy and early states after giving birth would no longer be covered by the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Money for community-based alternatives to nursing homes for frail Texans would be cut by nearly $200 million.

Early diagnosis and prevention programs for children on Medicaid would be cut by about $300 million.

But the directive also gave agencies the flexibility to supplement their budget proposals with money for programs and services they believe are absolutely essential. Virtually all of the social programs targeted for cuts or elimination in the baseline budget would be restored and in many cases substantially increased under the exceptional items submitted to the governor.

The Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for youngsters in low-income working families, would be restored to its funding level before the deep budget cuts in 2003 that culled about 150,000 children from the rolls.

The ranks of caseworkers to investigate reports of child and elderly abuse and neglect would be increased to comply with the Legislature's directive in 2005 that called for beefing up the state's protective services agencies. The agency calls the restoration of caseworkers funds its "highest priority additional funding item."

Also back on the table would be money for new state-operated independent living centers for Texans with disabilities.

Social service agency leaders say the state must be able to attract and retain top-flight workers, especially nurses and medical attendants. The state is hard-pressed to keep them on the payroll, they said.

Given that the latest projections show the state running an $8 billion surplus, some Democratic lawmakers and liberal activists accused Perry and the state's Republican leadership of playing politics with the lives of needy Texans and of pressuring state agencies to low-ball their budget estimates to squelch any talk of higher taxes heading into the 2006 election season and the upcoming legislative session that begins in January.

"Perry's [directive] is a political ploy aimed at his base on the right," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso. "The fact is . . . Texas is now 50th in per capita spending, 48th in average SATs and first in children with no health insurance."

But state Sen. Kim Brimer, a Fort Worth Republican who serves on the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee, said it's good policy to have state agency heads comb through the budget requests line by line, even if some of the deep cuts they are forced to propose are never imposed.

"Are we going to go through another round of deep cuts like we did in '03 when we were staring down the barrel of a $10 billion shortfall? No way," Brimer said. "But it's prudent to have these numbers vetted from top to bottom so that when we get back to Austin we'll be able to analyze what it is that needs to be done."