.
.
.
The State budget that was finally adopted this year assumed an optimistic revenue increase of $ 4 billion, and provided for automatic mid fiscal year “trigger cuts” if actual revenue is significantly less. Looks like the “less” is happening.
According to a newsletter of the California Family Resource Association (CFRA), California Controller John Chiang recently reported that state revenues fell short in October by $810.5 million, bringing the total shortfall in the first four months of the fiscal year to over $1.2 billion. CFRA also reports that the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) just released its analysis, which forecasts that by the end of the fiscal year the state will end up $3.7 billion below the level assumed in the June budget package. The LAO report estimates that the revenue shortfall will translate into $2 billion in trigger cuts including all of the Tier 1 cuts and more than half of the Tier 2 cuts.
What are Tier I and Tier II cuts? CFRA reports they are as follows:
Tier 1: If the state receives only $2-$3 billion of the assumed $ 4 billion revenue increase, $600 million in cuts will go into effect;
• $100 million cut to University of California
• $100 million cut to California State University
• $100 million cut to In-Home Supportive Services
• $100 million cut to Department of Developmental Services
• $72 million cut to Public Safety Programs
• $30 million cut to Community Colleges triggering a $10/unit fee hike
• $23 million Across-the-Board cut to Childcare Funding
• $20 million cut to Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
• $16 million cut to California State Library grants
• $15 million cut related to Medi-Cal Managed Care
• $15 million cut to California Emergency Management Agency
• $10 million cut to Department of Social Services in anti-fraud grants
Tier 2: If the state receives $0 – $2 billion of the assumed $ 4 billion revenue increase, an additional $1.9 billion in cuts will take effect;
• $1.5 billion reduction to K-12 schools that allows districts to drop seven classroom days
• $248 million cut that eliminates School Bus Transportation
• $72 million cut to Community Colleges
CFRA reports that by December 15th, the Director of the Department of Finance is to review the state’s numbers and the LAO’s analysis and officially determine whether the trigger must be pulled and what level of cuts will take effect. All of the trigger cuts would be implemented on January 1, 2012, except for the proposal that reduces 7 days from the K-12 school-year which may be implemented February 1, 2012.
If this is not bad enough news, we have a local dispute that appears to add fuel to this fire. The Board of Supervisors has decided it can divert $ 75 million of property tax revenues from public schools and Community Colleges to plug a $ 48 million dollar hole in the county budget that is blamed on – you guessed it – the state budget. The Supervisors believe the state is required to backfill this money by law and that the local schools will be made whole. The County Superintendent of Schools and other education leaders appear to have been caught flat footed by this move by the Supervisors and have doubts about the State being legally obligated – or financially able given the dire situation of state finances – to backfill the money the County plans to take. There is the smell of litigation in the air over this one.
For years we have seen Governors of both parties and our State Legislature kick the can down the road by adopting budgets based upon optimistic revenue assumptions, estimated savings that never seem to materialize, and rolling costs from one fiscal year into the next. It is looking like this year may be the year of reckoning, and if so it ain’t going to be pretty.
You mean the shell game that the Democrats called a budget didn’t pan out like they told us – shocking.
After decades of almost uninterrupted Republicans kicking the can down the road with accounting tricks — no one more so than Gov. Schwarzenegger — you have the temerity to accuse Dems of a shell game because Brown refused to follow suit and said that we have to take care of this honestly now? Are you deluded or just dense?
Your ignoring the fact that the Democrats have been in charge of the state house (the one that actually passes a budget) for as long as I can remember tells me all I need to know.
Evidently you also need to know about the veto power and Prop 13.
There is still somewhat of a shell game, Greg, but as one who has worked for the state for 24 years now, it also has never been as austere as it is under Governor Brown’s second tenure. Working for a specially funded agency, this annoys me to no end – as he is taking money from us to fill gaps for general fund agencies, so in a sense, Newbie is also correct. Let me say it is not remotely easy or fun to work for government right now. Those of you who think we have a free ride, I challenge YOU to work three jobs and do it well, while listening to people complain you aren’t doing it fast enough.
I’m not sure what the phrase “shell game” means to you. If Gov. Brown is trying to hide the prospect of threat, as in a normal shell game, he’s doing a lousy job of it! Whatever his game is, I don’t think it’s “shell.”
Isn’t it moving something of value around continuously in a deceptive pattern in hopes it won’t ultimately be found? Maybe that’s not the correct definition, but it’s how I’ve always perceived it, and it’s precisely what I’m observing Jerry is up to.
What is he moving around “deceptively”? He’s saying “we’re running out of money, get ready for the pain.” What’s deceptive about that — except that he leaves out that he does (or did) have the option of deceiving us the way Schwarzenegger did and for whatever reason refuses to do so?
im sure the unions seiu and the goon scad will be out in full force = MORE TAXES .
Why is California a failed state?
it use to be the golden state, what happened in the sixties / seventies to tilt the state over the edge to a slow creep, an increasing slide, to a full scale falling collapse?
(1) term limits
(2) prop 13
(3) gov unions
(4) ………
How about these two;
1) The requirement for two-thirds majorities in the Legislature to pass a budget and to raise taxes. Whatever happened to a simple majority?
2) The popular initiative process = legislators not doing their jobs and an uninformed public making complicated policy.
I’ll start with agreeing with you about number 2. The intitiative process is abused by both sides and allows the legislature to punt on difficult issues.
As to number 1, I couldn’t disagree more. Without the super majority requirement we would have a Chineese styled communist economy where everything is taxed and then the government decides who gets what – I am sure you would support that Anonster.
And thus did Geoff Willis opine that a Chinese-style communist economy would enjoy majority support in California.
(Do you believe him? Does he believe himself?)
Such disdain for DEMOCRACY, well, I think we all know that Geoff and his right-wing compadres are really fans of old fashioned oligarchy.
They (in their fevered fantasies) believe that they are deserving “princes” and everyone ‘below’ them are just undeserving, lazy, shiftless serfs.
I think Paul Krugman sums it up best;
“… because the gulf between our two major political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different priorities; they live in different intellectual and moral universes.”
Not surprised that you view opposition to the tyranny of the majority as disdain for democracy and that further you view it as immoral.
No Geoff, I view supermajorities the same way the Constitution does, where it’s used only in a few special cases; ratifying treaties and constitutional amendments, overriding presidential vetoes, expelling members and for impeachments.
It should NOT be used to BLOCK THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, which is exactly what is going on in the Ca. legislature and the US Senate.
So you are AGAINST Prop 13 which requires a 2/3 vote to raise taxes? Against Filibuster in the Senate? Against the jury system that requires unanimity to reach a verdict?
Or are you once again only against super majorities when it suits your needs and your causes of the day? You only want to block the will of the people when it isn’t the same as your will?
That’s what I thought!
Hey Geoff, way to conflate “super majority” with “simple majority”.
They’re two different things.
And you want to only bitch about “the tyranny of the majority” when it suits your needs?
That’s what I thought!
“It should NOT be used to BLOCK THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, which is exactly what is going on in the Ca. legislature and the US Senate.”
Were you aware that the last vote by Californians to increase taxes in 2009 went down 65-35. What will of the people are you talking about?
Ah yes, 2009. Seems like … ten years ago.
But Newbie, “will of the people” means what Anonster’s union hacks want to do and nothing else. C’mon, get with the program
You know what, we’re not saying – here – whether or not there SHOULD be a 2/3 threshold for taxes, budget etc. We ARE saying that this threshold made it impossible for any revenue-based solutions to be put in place. Because, I think, somebody was asking how we got to this grim pass?
Got that?
It got to this “grim place” because the legislature mistakenly thought it was the federal government and could spend its way out of its problems. Piper has to be paid now and cranking up revenue and chasing even more business out makes no sense.
“Grim PASS” if you’re gonna quote me. And if you’re not going to be the first person to say “Occupied Piper” I will historically beat you.
Let the record show that, barring any trashings of comments or reclamation of trashed comments, this (meaning Vern’s) is the 90,000th comment on OJB. Woo-hoo!
Newbie,
“Were you aware that the last vote by Californians to increase taxes in 2009 went down 65-35. What will of the people are you talking about?”
Were you aware that if we required super majorities for all votes, the above example would have failed (2/3 = 66%)? And that legislation/proposition would have had to start from scratch again, which is EXACTLY what is happening now and why nothing gets done in Sacramento and in the US senate?
Geoff,
“But Newbie, “will of the people” means what Anonster’s union hacks want to do and nothing else. ”
Does you think that “union hacks” are the people we elect to represent us in Sacramento or was Geoffy making a funny?
I really have to ask, as you never fail to astound me with your stupidity/ignorance.
diamond have you lost your head , who for the last 10 years controls calif with a HUGE MAJORTY . yet just like a lib blames republicans . CALIF is in the toliet due to democraps , unions , reps have no power in this state . UNFREAKING BELIVEABLE .
TGO,
The fact that Diamond is blaming the Republicans for California’s fiscal mess shows that there is no rational debate you can have with him on this topic.
Yeah, Grate One, stop trying to have a rational debate! When are you ever gonna learn?
Had Davis’s hike in the tag fee been allowed to stand (rather than allowed to elect Schwarzenegger), the budget shortfall would not have appeared (at least for most of the past decade.) Look it up. Republicans still have the power to block Democratic revenue bills, now both taxes and fees, just like Republicans have had (and abused) the ability to block bills in the Senate.
Do you not know this or are you just pretending not to know this?
NEWBIE COULD NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE . its like he runs a red light and blames the light for not changing when he drove bye . wilis once again i agree with you when dealing with anoster who would tax you for going to the crapper . if we didnt have the 2/3 vote ..her bathroom tx would become law .
It is my belief that both parties have a heap of well earned blame for what ails California’s fiances. Most recently, both Schwarzenegger and Davis were at the helm when annual budgets were adopted that used tricks and gimmicks to falsely portray a balanced budget. These tricks go back as far as Pete Wilson that I remember. But, once we are done blaming one or both parties, the multi-billion dollar question is – how do we fix it? Let the cuts outlined in the budget triggers happen? Something else?
OBNO,
Add Brown to that list. I agree that recent governors have presided over gimmick-laden budgets, but it is still the Democrats who have controlled the legislature for decades (and written those gimmick-laden budgets), and it is the Democrats who have never seen a tax dollar they couldn’t spend. I would say that most Republicans feel the Governator was no longer a Republican after he was neutered by the public employee unions in 2005 and tucked tail and ran.
To answer your question as to how we fix it, therein lies the problem. Democrats are unwilling to recognize that we are spending ourselves into oblivion. I think Brown wants the cuts to go into effect (so he won’t call an emergency session of the legislature) so he can trot out the teachers, doctors, and firefighters next year when he pushes for more tax increases that he will then give to his union allies, and the vicious cycle will continue as it always has. The automatic cuts that will be triggered by the budget shortfall will do nothing in the long term.
Maybe its bad seeds?
A year ago I attended the state senate meeting here in Santa Ana on accountability and transparency in local governments. (In response to the city of Bell) (Only 3 people did not wear 500 dollar suits, all 3 of us are from Santa Ana)
That is the farm where future assembly and state senate members are grown. (City councils, school districts, water and sewer and other local boards and committees)
A lot of testimony was given and ideas were talked about. The local senator thought adding to the current form 700 could work, as the locals politicians already must complete that form.
I got a copy of the first report in the mail a month later and expected a final report this last summer.
I checked to see what is follow up, and when the final report and what action was going to be taken.
Should I have been surprised?
(1) The university professor was forced out, the one in the papers detailing all the problems with local transparency in government.
(2) The big union guy (OCEA) who ripped them a new one with his testimony got appointed to the OC fair board. (The unpaid one where the members walk out with tens of thousand of untaxed and unreported freebies.
(3) The committee itself was disbanded without any action being completed.
Cook. You sound as cynical and disillusioned by our so called elected leaders (of both stripes) as I am! My experience is that electeds, no matter what the party, love handing out the candy to constituents, including bringing home the pork. But, when it comes to telling anyone the party is over, they are unwilling to look constiutents in the eye and deliver that message. It’s a lot of fun delivering good news, and it ain’t fun delivering bad news. Maybe these trigger cuts need to happen to really wake up the elecorate ?
vern learn come over to the good side . the side that makes sense . saw you on you tube . good piano playing .
From a Cubano – even one who doesn’t understand politics – good compliment!
vern i do understand you guys are in the wrong but at least your piano playing is right . anoster block the will of the people . tell that to the folks in az . who want to pass the illegal alien law and they where blocked . paul krugman haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa his idea of getting us out of this mess is more spending what a tool but hes your far , far left person you follow annoster . way to put her in her place willis .
oh and diamond, davis , arnold who turned on us had the right idea when HE 1ST GOT IN . cut public service unions pensions , they spent a zillion dollars to beat it . but i guess he was right we are now in a worse mess DUE TO DEMOCRAPS WHO OWN THIS STATE WITH THEIR UNIONS . if they get their way this state will officially here the words= WE ARE NOW IN BK .. wich i somehow wouldnt even mind seeing just to prove that your way does not work nor has it ever work = see what is going on over seas its coming this way starting right here .
I just learned today two new things about this budget situation – First, the Legislature enacted a law, after the budget was adopted, that tells school districts that if cuts happen due to a trigger being pulled, they are prohibited from laying off teachers. This would greatly limit the ability of school districts to cope with a mid-fiscal year budget cut. Second, there is “talk” about the education community trying to get something on the November, 2012 ballot to secure new funding for public education. There is also some exploratory talk about the legality and political feasiblity of the Legislature granting school districts the authority to levy some kind of tax locally.
obno great points.. private sector hey boss if your losing $$$$ we are passing a law that prohibteds you from laying people off . and if you lay off we will raise your taxes . so goes the busniness climate in calif .