SALEM — Human services advocates are urging Oregon lawmakers to dip into the state’s rainy day fund to avoid cuts to programs for the needy.

That suggestion came Tuesday night as the Legislature’s budget-writing panel began hearings on what could be the first round of cuts to social services and other programs in the midst of the deepening recession.

The current two-year budget, which ends June 30, must be cut by as much as $800 million over the next few months to keep it balanced as required by law.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski proposes to reduce child care subsidies for low-income working families, eliminate dental and vision benefits for adults on the Oregon Health Plan and slice funding for community-based mental health and drug and alcohol treatment programs.

Social services advocates say those steps would cause too much hardship and that lawmakers should dip into the state’s $350 million rainy day fund instead.

“More families need our help at the very time we are proposing cuts,” said Cathy Kaufmann of Children First for Oregon, one of the advocacy groups that urged lawmakers to spend from the state’s reserves.

That idea has yet to find favor with Kulongoski and legislative leaders. They say things could get even worse in the next two years and the money will be needed then.

Kulongoski also is banking on congressional passage of the federal economic stimulus plan, with increased Medicaid payments and new general aid to states.

But the social services groups who testified Tuesday said Oregon can’t wait for federal action. Patti Whitney-Wise of the Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force said cutting dental benefits for 100,000 Oregon Health Plan patients, for example, could ultimately cost the state down the road, if it has to pay for the emergency treatment of severe dental problems.

“We have people who can’t eat the food we provide them” at food banks because of advanced dental disease, Whitney-Wise said.

Similarly, David Hidalgo of Multnomah County mental health and addiction services, said cutting funding for community-based programs to treat mentally ill people could boomerang on the state.

“Without those services, they will end up in our local hospitals, our jails, and ultimately on the streets,” Hidalgo said.