State lawmakers announce budget deal… again

June 21, 2012

Katy Grimes: UPDATE: Assembly and Senate leaders announced this morning that they have reached a deal on the budget and will vote on it Tuesday.

I thought that legislators already approved a budget last Friday, June 15, California’s Constitutional deadline for the budget.

Does this mean that legislators have had their pay withheld since Friday? Proposition 25, passed by voters in 2010, requires that the Legislature must pass a budget by June 15 every year or legislators are docked pay until it is passed.

The sham of a budget that was passed on Friday was made up of only two bills, and did not include the many trailer bills.

But a recent Superior Court decision confirmed that because of the poorly written Prop 25, lawmakers get to decide if what they pass constitutes a budget.

This is a case of “be careful what you wish for.” Voters thought they had finally found a way to hold state legislators accountable when they approved Prop 25. But the opposite has happened–the fox is definitely guarding the henhouse.

The stench coming from the Capitol smells like desperation.

UPDATE: Gov. Jerry Brown insisted today “This agreement strongly positions the state to withstand the economic challenges and uncertainties ahead. We have restructured and downsized our prison system,” Brown said, “moved government closer to the people, made billions in difficult cuts and now the Legislature is poised to make even more difficult cuts and permanently reform welfare.”

And if you believe any of this, I have a bridge to sell you.

There are more than 25 budget trailer bills which will be voted on Tuesday, only requiring a majority vote for passage.  Brown is expected to sign all of the bills before the June 27 deadline.

California Budget Fact Check

With all of the budget games, funding shifts, tricky accounting, and game playing, California Budget Fact Check asks, “has Proposition 25 produced balanced budgets for California?  Have legislators stopped playing games with the budget?”

Here is what California Budget Fact Check found:

• Public accountability has suffered in the majority vote budget process, with key decisions made behind closed doors outside the lens of taxpayers and the news media.
• Even though budgets no longer require bipartisan votes for passage, the same types of gimmicks and tricks are still being used to avoid tough budget choices.
• Though conventional wisdom held that there would be no problem passing an on-time, majority vote budget, the Legislature passed only part of this year’s spending plan by the June 15 deadline, leaving more than 2/3rds of the budget bills available to be drafted or rewritten based on additional negotiations.

and, Lawmakers Write Budget Behind Closed Doors

One of the unintended consequences of Proposition 25 has been a sharp decline in budget decisions made in an open and public process. 

Read the rest from California Budget Fact Check