California Gov. Brown orders $980m in budget cuts
By Kevin Yamamura and Diana Lambert
The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO -- In a rare December budget action, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced deeper cuts Tuesday to colleges, libraries and child care, though he spared K-12 schools from the worst-case scenario they had feared.
It served as prologue to another year of budget jousting as Brown prepares to ask voters for $7 billion in higher taxes to avoid deeper reductions.
All told, California will impose $980 million in midyear cuts to a dozen programs starting in January, a sizable amount but less than half of what the Legislative Analyst predicted last month.
The governor estimates 7,500 children will lose subsidized child care, while community colleges plan to add another fee increase starting next summer.
"The state cannot give what it does not have," Brown said. "And there's been a lot of obfuscation and gimmickry, and I've reduced that to a minimum, if I do say so. I don't want to rely on pushing the problem further down the road."
"This is not the way we'd like to run California. But we have to live within our means," Brown said in a news conference at the state Capitol.
The Democratic governor said Tuesday he expects California to fall $2.2 billion shy of its optimistic summer revenue forecast for the current fiscal year, triggering the $980 million in cuts.
Because of how Brown and lawmakers drafted the June budget, K-12 school districts could have lost as much as $1.5 billion in general-purpose funding -- the equivalent of seven instructional days.
But Brown's latest revenue snapshot was robust enough that schools will instead face a $79.6 million reduction in general funding and a $248 million elimination of bus transportation money.
"The cut to transportation is absolutely devastating," Steve Henderson, a lobbyist for the California School Employees Association, which represents school bus drivers among other school workers, told the Associated Press. "What that means is a lot of low income and rural kids will not have the ability to get to school."
It could have been worse.
"The good news is, it wasn't horrific news," said Jonathan Raymond, superintendent of Sacramento City Unified School District. He had anticipated losing $12.5 million in state funding but now says the district will only lose about $2 million.
Still, districts remain nervous because Brown threatened Tuesday to impose deeper cuts next fall if voters reject his $7 billion plan to raise sales taxes, as well as income taxes on the wealthy.
Brown said he will propose "far more than a billion" in new cuts when he releases his budget in January. It is unclear how large his fiscal office believes the deficit will be, but the Legislative Analyst's Office pegged the figure last month at $12.8 billion.
"Schools may have dodged a bullet in December," said education lobbyist Kevin Gordon. "But they may find that in the budget come January, their share of a $13 billion hole will add to the uncertainty they've lived with the last couple of years."
The University of California and California State University systems had prepared to absorb the $100 million cut each was handed Tuesday by relying on reserves. CSU also delayed purchases and campus maintenance.
But their future remains murky, and Department of Finance Director Ana Matosantos said the cuts are expected to remain in place next year.
California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott said his system will impose a new $10 per unit hike, raising fees from $36 to $46 starting next summer.
The governor does not plan on courting GOP support for his tax proposal. With help from labor unions, Brown will attempt to gather 807,615 valid signatures to place his measure on the November 2012 ballot.
Democrats are enthused by recent polls, including one from the Public Policy Institute of California, indicating that voters may be willing to approve Brown's taxes.
"You either cut, or you tax; there is no third way," Brown said.
Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said Brown's tax plan would drive business out of state.
"If American history has taught us anything, it's that there is a third way, and it's that you grow the economy," Coupal said. "Unfortunately this governor is doing everything he can to shrink the economy."
It's far from certain that midyear cuts will save the entire $980 million that Brown is counting on. A federal judge has already blocked a $100 million cut to In-Home Supportive Services until a hearing next month.
California's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, announced Tuesday it will sue the state to halt the $248 million school bus cut. The district says it is required to bus 35,000 students under a desegregation court order.
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