CA budget

Day 91

I know it's a bit late...but the Giants are playing great baseball.

Day 91...

Not much action with the head honchos...
Capitol Alert: Budget delay continues without Big 5 meeting

Bloomberg chiming in a bit:
Schwarzenegger, California Lawmakers Cancel Planned Round of Budget Talks - Bloomberg

I guess when the budget is the late, someone writes the situation in such a way that it sounds like a game of chicken is going on:CA Gov and Lawmakers Cancel Tuesday Budget Talks « Newstalk1290 KPAY

Not the child care centers!
Parents apply pressure on state to pass budget for state child care funding | abc7news.com

Interesting Associated Press piece that made its way into Forbes.com:
Calif. set to enter fourth month without a budget - Forbes.com

"Thousands of vendors are owed nearly $3 billion for the first three months of the fiscal year, according to Chiang's office, but they won't even get IOUs until a budget is approved. That's because state law prevents any sort of payments - even IOUs - without an appropriation from the Legislature, Jordan said." $3 billion that has to be paid plus interest once the budget passes. Where I work, there are certain rules in place for the Medical program because the state budget process would interfere with the federal receivership mission of satisfying a federal court order to bring prison health care to a "constitutional" level. In other words, not violating the 8th Amendment (Cruel and Unusual punishment).

huh...this is interesting, because Health Net is the new declared winner of the big PPO contract for the state prison system to care for prisoners. Morningstar: New Credit Rating: Health Net |Wonder how big that contract is in relation to their other contracts elsewhere. Interesting to see how one financial company analyses the health care industry in CA with 2 (gasp!) non-profit insurance companies and think it's super risky combined with one the hardest-hit states in the recession.

uh-oh. I'm including a link to a site called "biggovernment.com". "Liberals"- shield your eyes :Ohno: » California Budget Crisis Revisited - Big GovernmentWasn't too bad was it?

Ok, we'll comment on one thing they said:"On the surface, Prop 25 seems like the perfect way to end the budget stalemates that have become so common in California and so devastating to the economy. Scratch through the shiny gloss about increasing government accountability and you will find a bill that is designed to give legislators more power to pass a budget filled with gimmicks and pet projects.
Proponents point to the provision that legislators won’t get paid if a budget doesn’t pass, which hardly matters. Eliminating the super-majority provision means lawmakers will be able to pass any budget they want- even if they know it has no chance of getting past the governor’s office. This proposition does nothing more than put a mask over the real problem facing the budget: we don’t have any money left to spend."

And that leads us to our CA concept of the day: How many legislators does it take to pass a state budget?
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"Budget"
Proposed expenditure of state moneys for the next fiscal year, presented by the Governor in January of each year for consideration by the Legislature; compiled by the Department of Finance, in conjunction with state agency and department heads.

The budget year/fiscal year is July 1 to June 30. So last January 2010, the Governor proposed a budget to be enacted on July 1, 2010. Today is September 29th. Department of Finance has also chimed in.

Two houses; a lower (80 seats) and upper (40 seats). Estimated population for 2009 is 36,961,664.

What Proposition 25 proposes to do Is lower the 2/3 requirement of the legislature to pass a budget to a simple majority but retain the 2/3 requirement for any tax increase. CA is heavily democratic and I've heard different kinds of arguments about the 2/3, 1/2 stuff. Have at it.

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but plenty of action around here:naughty:...

I'll re-cap the day in about an hour...
 
I cannot recall the last time the budget was in place on or before the deadline and this deadline is written into the Constitution....:roll:
 
Tousi said:
I cannot recall the last time the budget was in place on or before the deadline and this deadline is written into the Constitution....:roll:
Click to expand...

I wonder when the cows will come home.
 
Day 91 Re-Cap and solutions to the CA Budget impasse

Re-cap Day 91:

"Big 5" doesn't meet for second straight day, even they met Monday and declared last week that a "framework" was in place.

Went over the basic tenant to pass a budget, however, I forget to really emphasize the "Big 5" concept in there. In the past few years since the economy went down the drain (along with property taxes and other tax receipts) and "maintaining" expenditures (salaries change/people retire), the legislature has had beacoup problems agreeing on budget proposals. So, a more formal process between the governor, majority and minority leaders of both houses have taken place so that a budget "agreement" could be passed by their caucuses in both houses and then signed by the Governor. So really, those 5 positions in state government are the most important, not necessarily the 120 +1.

Governor reportedly wants to roll-back pension numbers/political/budget concessions that were made as part of a budget deal in 1999.

Onto the AD proposals...

Previously stated Day 90 proposals:
1. "California can't be saved"....(if it can't be saved, does it mean bankruptcy/dissolution?)
2. Jerry Brown can save CA... (After November 2nd election. Probably won't be in office until mid to late January and pretty sure a budget might get passed/bankruptcy by then?)
3. Send union officials (and all state employees?) to Mexico (and try their luck at securing favors from drug cartels?)

Day 91 Proposals:
4. "Bail out CA".
  • using explicit "bail-out" Federal funds? Meaning, federal taxes will support some parts of the CA budget (that's how I interpret that statement). Unfortunately (or fortunately?) CA already assumes this have happen. Look at LAO link from Day 91 news.
.
5. "Cut governor's salary". Supposedly (in my mind) Arnold is working for "free" already. City manager salaries I believe, might not be set by the state or even paid out by the state? Justices, yes. But I don't want a McDonald's salary-equivalent going "ain't right for my brudda, ain't right kali-poppy". Are judges overpaid? I have no frakkin' idea.
6. "Eliminate CA government jobs". Hmm, so there's a 2.25 million number floating out there. Where did it come from? We'll debate a bit later on the "appropriate" number of "true" CA government positions. In my experience, sometimes eliminate cheaper labor jobs isn't the answer, maybe it's the number of people and then the pension system that makes this point more relevant? Is there a "better" way to cut the number of hours in a given month to pay current employees than just firing a set number of the greenest employees?
7. "Don't raise taxes." So no new proposed taxes (increases only?) on anything.
8. "Find a honest and trustworthy Tresurer". Sorry bud, this dude is elected by the people and not appointed by the Governor. Up to the people if he'll follow orders like a monkey. For those who don't know, the current Treasurer has "stood up" to the Governor for not implementing the federal minimum wage on state workers about 1-2 months ago because of a very old accounting system that spews out money. Trust me, it is very very old and very plausible with what the Treasurer is saying, but it's just as plausible he may be banking some political points.
9. "Force illegal immigrants to pay taxes or leave the state". Well shoot. let's just all become peace officers and kick down some doors. We'll go into the immigration issues in a bit. I need to refresh my national vs. state outlook on this as well. Make 'em legal and pay taxes or make 'em leave?
10. "Current Governor was made star-struck the public and made deals to make Davis look like an incompetent politician". Cheney. Enron. Sigh. The following paragraph, if true, certainly reeks:
  • "No," Cheney said during the Frontline interview. "The problem you had in California was caused by a combination of things--an unwise regulatory scheme, because they didn't really deregulate. Now they're trapped from unwise regulatory schemes, plus not having addressed the supply side of the issue. They've obviously created major problems for themselves and bankrupted PG&E in the process." A month before the Frontline interview and Bush's meeting with Davis, Cheney, who chairs Bush's energy task force, met with Lay to discuss Bush's National Energy Policy. Lay, whose company was the largest contributor to Bush's presidential campaign, made some recommendations that would financially benefit his company. Lay gave Cheney a memo that included eight recommendations for the energy policy. Of the eight, seven were included in the final draft. The energy policy was released in late May 2001, after Schwarzenegger, Riordan and Milken met with Lay and after the meeting between Bush and Davis and Cheney's Frontline interview.
After allegations of the Whitman/house nanny episode, I was bit...taken aback. Great timing if you're Jerry Brown and have a lot of undecided, maybe stupid, voters. Unfortunately, it'll take some time to get the truth sorted in that incident. But, certainly made me think about what Whitman said during the debate the other night about how she wants to take a lot of talented bay area private sector people and put them in state government... At least that's how it sounded like to me....my question was...well, shoot, who wants to work at a lower wage? and would they transition smoothly from business to state? For the most part: state is state, business is business. I'd rather see 1/5 businesses fail over 5 years than 1/1 state fail at all. And I'd rather have "equal" job opportunities for both state and businesses. I don't really care for politics to determine what job markets are open to either state/private in particular.

In Day 92, I'll respond to FoxRac: "There are some states in huge debt too since California isn't alone, is it right?" Hopefully, I can dredge some comparative datasets to shape a picture. If this doesn't make sense, forgive my late-night writing.

Feel free to bash or comment in any shape or form, except that which serves no purpose but to insult another - or yourself:shock:.
 
Yeah, now working on the language, hoping to announce Wed and the Gov sign Thursday.....
 
:facepalm:

Capitol Alert: State budget details releasedCapitol Alert: State budget details released

How do politicians assume to secure federal "bail-out" funds that don't exist yet and savings from department of corrections (sub-health care- where I work) are totally unrealistic and are about 25% ($5.3 billion from new federal relief plus $1.1 from corrections cuts= $6.4/19 billion shortfall = 33.68% ) of the original estimated shortfall??? Excuse me, make that around 1/3.

This is horrible...what are politicians doing/thinking? I mean seriously, more than 90 days overdue and you can't come up with 100% balanced budget without assuming "gifts" near 33% of it?

And the new governor makes their proposal almost as soon as he/she takes office in January for the FY2011/2012 that starts June 30, 2011.

I'm ok with the pension changes. It won't affect me much and it's probably best to have those kind of changes made.

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furlough issue

'Furlough Friday' still on this week - Sacramento Politics - California Politics | Sacramento Bee

I haven't gone through the entire Supreme Court decision that was released this past Monday, but in a nutshell, the Legislature gave tacit approval by including language in the FY20092010 budget that allowed such measures by the Governor to implement those furloughs legally. What remains to be seen is how the legislature may or may not include similar language in this FY budget that is supposed to be voted on on Thursday. If it doesn't include similar language to allow the Governor to implement furloughs this FY, well, ahem. More taxpayer money goes to fighting new lawsuits.
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I guess this is what happens when you have the kind of system and variables in place that make our political system for budgeting so dysfunctional.

1) add more seats. Seriously. 120 seats really is controlled by 5. And there's quite a few people living here.
2) constitutional reform...especially vote requirements towards budget passage. - purpose is to dissolve the dependence placed on the "Big 5".

disgusted.
 
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