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genuinegirly · 07-21-2009, 07:02 AM

What do you think about the new budget California has now passed?
Will the cuts affect you personally or anyone you know?

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My thoughts:

Finally!
Since my mother is in education in California, I'm curious how the budget is going to affect her and her school district. I keep thinking "Thank goodness I'm no longer in that state," but at the same time I'm concerned about the people who live there and have to deal with the inadequate system.
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Here's an article from the New York Times about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/us...ef=global-home

Quote:

July 21, 2009
California Reaches Budget Deal, With Billions Cut
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
LOS ANGELES — California lawmakers, their state broke and its credit rating shot, finally sealed the deal with the governor Monday night on a plan to close a $26 billion budget gap.

The plan, which is certain to be viewed with trepidation among legislatures across the country also facing huge budget gaps, distributes pain through nearly every aspect of government services. While the Legislature pushed back on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to eliminate health care programs for children and the state’s generous welfare program, both took large cuts. So did public education, universities and local governments.

All told, the deal contains $15.6 billion in cuts, about $2.1 billion in borrowing, $3.9 billion in new revenues and about $2.7 billion in accounting maneuvers like shifting a payday into the next fiscal year, which Mr. Schwarzenegger had claimed he would not brook.

Under the new budget, which runs through the 2010 fiscal year, localities will basically serve as unwilling lending agents to the state. It will raid their coffers and repay them over time as the state’s fiscal situation improves.

“I would characterize this budget as shared pain and shared sacrifice,” Karen Bass, the speaker of the California Assembly, said in a telephone interview from Sacramento.

Last February, lawmakers signed off on a budget deal with $14.8 billion in spending cuts, $12.5 billion in tax increases and $5.4 billion in new borrowing, along with the creation of a $1 billion reserve fund. But that budget depended on a nod from voters on several ballot measures. All failed.

With the deficit continuing to grow, the state was forced to issue millions of dollars in i.o.u.’s to vendors and taxpayers in lieu of payment.

After weeks of often-cantankerous negotiations, state officials have come up with a compromise that few who receive government services will celebrate. While the state’s health insurance program for children, Healthy Families, remains, it was cut by $144 million, meaning thousands of children will probably be on a waiting list for the program unless a private foundation makes up the balance, as the Democratic-controlled Legislature hopes.

In-home services for the elderly and infirm were reduced by several million dollars, and Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, achieved his goal of having caregivers and the recipients fingerprinted in the future with the goal of preventing fraud. While the governor wanted certain welfare benefits to be reduced from a five-year period to two years, the program was instead given an overall cut of $500 million.

Local governments will lose millions of dollars that are used to build housing, among other purposes, and the state plans to borrow roughly $2 billion in property taxes from localities, which would have to be repaid within three years. Lawmakers believe that cities and counties could in turn borrow against that borrowing; localities bankrupt or nearly so would be exempt.

One of the biggest sticking points was over the $11 billion already cut from public schools. The budget deal calls for roughly $650 million more in cuts.

Under California law, though, the state is on the hook to pay that money back, something it has not done in the past. So lawmakers have written legislation guaranteeing that the money goes back to schools. The governor had faced strong criticism from the state’s teachers’ union.

“We accomplished a lot,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said after the agreement was reached. “We made government more efficient and also we’re cutting waste, fraud and abuse.”

The governor also said, on his Twitter feed: “We’ll actually be having a CA Garage Sale at the end of Aug to auction cars and office supplies.” He will sign some of the items to increase their value.