Legislative Update | July 7, 2010
UPDATED June 29, 2010: 2009-10
California Legislative Session:
Education-Related Bills
State Budget Update (Posted July 7, 2010)
The Legislature’s summer recess has begun, and once again it begins with no state budget agreement in sight. Most Sacramento budget watchers now agree that it is unlikely we will have a final state budget before mid-August, at the earliest.
State Controller John Chiang is warning that without an approved budget in place by August 1, he will have to commence expensive borrowing and institute additional delays in the payment of state obligations. With the missed July 1 deadline, the State Controller has already stopped paying most state vendors, local governments and community colleges. The state also will withhold pay for lawmakers and legislative staff.
While schools are generally constitutionally protected from such stoppages, the continued delay will mean a budget so late that school will start before districts have any real knowledge of the revenues they can anticipate.
“Big Five” starts final round of budget talks
The “Big Five” is comprised of the governor and the two Democratic and two Republican leaders of the Legislature. The announcement of Big Five meetings signals the final and toughest round of the budget process. It is in those meetings that decisions will be made on the basic issues of how much to cut spending and how much to raise revenue – to bridge the state’s $19.1 billion gap. The five leaders will have to bridge the very large philosophical differences between legislative Republicans and Democrats and the governor on these core issues.
The majority Democrats have rejected broad cuts to health and human services, including child care, instead proposing “new revenues” to avoid deep cuts and still balance the budget. But both the governor and Republican legislators have already called this idea a “non-starter.” And until the Big Five reaches agreement on the issue of whether and/or how much to count on new revenues, it will be impossible to take action on the majority of budget issues.
No agreement on education funding level
As all are aware, the governor’s January budget proposal included more cuts to education, and as we await a final budget agreement, schools must and have built their budgets assuming those cuts are imposed.
Furthermore, given the state’s almost $20 billion budget gap and the lack of bipartisan support for either new revenues or deep cuts in health and human service programs, it does appear that the best schools can hope for is a budget that contains cuts no deeper than the governor’s January proposal.
Education spending represents the largest piece of the state’s budget pie, and, as such, is always a key lynchpin in the final state budget deal. Thus, we are unlikely to know what school funding will look like until the ink is all but dry on a final budget deal.
Sandy Silberstein,
Executive Director, Riverside County Schools Advocacy Association (RCSAA)
(916) 325-1162
sandy@rcsaa.com
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