I am sure that Democrats look to their legislative leaders to produce a review and summary of the Governor’s proposed budget because, well, the Governor is, after all, from the "other" party. Why trust his documentation?
Here’s a little secret. Republicans also to look to their legislative leaders to produce a review and summary of the Governor’s proposed budget because, well, he’s "Post-Partisan" as he likes to say, and is sponsoring a ballot measure in June with the express purpose of minimizing the role and influence of political parties.
So, for the consumption of conservatives, the State Senate Republican Caucus under the leadership of Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth has prepared a pretty length document going over the Governor’s budget. While I’ve only scanned it, it appears to be pretty comprehensive, yet digestible even for non policy wonks.
Below is a summary of the prepared document, and below it a link to the .PDF file. Thanks to Senator Hollingsworth, and especially to the Senate Republican budget and fiscal staff who clearly poured a lot of time and energy into the preparation of this document.
Executive Summary
When the Governor signed the revised 2009 Budget Act in July 2009, the anticipated budget deficit for 2010-11 was $6.9 billion. However, largely as a result of continued economic weakness and because many of the budget solutions failed to deliver the anticipated savings, the budget gap has grown to $19.9 billion ($6.6 billion in 2009-10 and $12.3 billion in 2010-11) including $1 billion for a reserve.
The Governor indicates that $4.9 billion of solutions have been lost as a result of federal and state court decisions (e.g., In-Home Support Services program changes, sale of State Compensation Insurance Fund, and use of certain transportation funds to offset General Fund expenditures) – though there are several billion dollars more at-risk in other lawsuits that have not yet been acknowledged in this budget (i.e., state worker furloughs, use of Redevelopment Agency funds, several tax cases and Medi-Cal provider rate cases.) In addition, increased population/caseload driven costs ($1.4 billion) and the “erosion” or failure to achieve some of the enacted solutions ($2.3 billion) such as the state prison and Medi-Cal savings have contributed to the increased budget gap. Lower than anticipated revenues account for another $3.4 billion of the identified budget deficit.
In order to generate immediate action and focus on the state budget, the Governor proclaimed a “fiscal emergency” pursuant to his Proposition 58 (2004) authority. The Proposition 58 special session requires the Legislature to send the Governor a bill addressing the fiscal emergency within 45 days or it cannot act on any other bills. The Governor has proposed about $1.2 billion of “special session” solutions for 2009-10 that grow to nearly $7.7 billion in 2010-11 (totaling $8.9 billion). If the legislature waits until July 1, the savings would be reduced by over $2.4 billion – that is the cost of delay.
The Governor’s proposed 2010-11 Budget includes a combination of major spending reductions, some fund shifts and “other” revenue increases (e.g., sale of EdFund and sale-leaseback proposals), a new category called “alternative funding” that appears to be more new revenues and fund shifts (e.g., Proposition 10 and 63 funds, add speeding violations to red light cameras, Tranquillon Ridge, Emergency Response Initiative, etc.) and a considerable expectation for new federal funds– but no new general taxes – to make up the budgetary shortfall.