State Has More Cash, But Governor Says Big Cuts Are Still Needed
Schools may be spared big cuts, but mental health programs will be eliminated under governor's proposal
Updated 2:25 p.m. on May 16, 2011 to include more detailed information about budget cuts.
Gov. Jerry Brown offered a bit--but only a bit--of good news about California's budget crisis Monday. The state is expected take in an additional $6.6 billion in tax revenue, more than the Governor's office anticipated in January.
This infusion of cash will help shrink the state’s budget deficit from $15.4 billion to about $10 billion and will provide schools with an additional $3 billion in funding.
But California's finances remain in a dire state, the governor warned.
“I proposed a stable, balanced program,” Brown said at a news conference Monday morning in Sacramento where he unveiled his revised budget proposal. “If that is defeated in the legislature, or even if it’s defeated by the voters, it will be, everyone will retreat to their corner…If it falls apart, it will be very divisive for California.”
The governor's proposal includes cuts or changes to a wide swath of state programs. For example, the plan calls for the elimination of the Departments of Mental Health and Alcohol and Drug Programs; some of these functions will be shifted to county governments.
The revised budget also proposes to fold the Healthy Families Program into the Medi-Cal program, creating a single health care program for low-income families. The Healthy Families Program provides health insurance for 850,000 low-income children in California.
Health advocates decried the move.
"In Medi-Cal, it generally costs less to cover children," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a health care advocacy group with offices in Oakland. As a result, Wright said, children "might not be able to have the same access to doctors and specialists."
The governor's proposal includes cutting 5,500 state jobs also and eliminating 43 boards, commissions, task forces, offices and departments. The state has more than 300 boards and commissions that have long been a target of government watchdog groups, who say many board members receive more than $100,000 a year to attend one meeting a month.
The revised budget plan also includes the sale of state-owned properties, such as Montclair Golf Course in Oakland and the Los Angeles Coliseum, and a plan to streamline California's debt.
By turns feisty and stern, Brown acknowledged his budget hinges on his ability to persuade at least four Republican lawmakers to place tax extension measures on the November ballot. Those measures would extend the state sales tax and the vehicle license fees at their current rate.
Brown had hoped to put the tax extensions on the ballot in June, but he failed to get the support he needed from Republicans. The governor has dropped his proposal to extend the state income tax--at least for this year. Brown said he's hearing "encouraging words" from the Republicans he's talking to now.
If Brown fails to persuade legislators to add the tax extensions to the ballot, he will consider a Plan B. But he declined to provide specifics, saying “I am not going to give the Republicans a road map to ruin.”
The governor remains confident that voters will approve the extensions, if they get on the ballot.
Despite the news that schools will receive a $3 billion windfall, San Francisco Unified School District officials said the governor’s latest spending plan offers little relief beyond what had been promised in January.
“This is not a big windfall for us, because this is actually getting close to what the Governor proposed in January,” said Jill Wynns, a longtime member of the San Francisco Unified School District, in a telephone interview from Sacramento, where she was lobbying local lawmakers on the state’s education spending. “I don’t think that it will change our budget.”
The district faces a projected deficit of about $25 million through June 2012, officials say. While the San Francisco district has sent out pink slips to 400 teachers, administrators and other staff, Wynns said she hopes to rescind some of them.
Some local officials said they are furiously working over the state’s revised figures.
“There's a lot more detail that we have yet to go through and understand,” said Tom Manheim, a spokesman for San Jose. “By tomorrow we'll have a better handle on it.”
--Hadley Robinson contributed to this report.
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