Budget

The Los Angeles Fire Department has begun shutting down rescue units and eliminating paramedic field supervisors as part a cost-cutting plan that officials say will increase response times during life-threatening emergencies. The plan goes into full effect early Thursday, with 15 fire trucks and six ambulances being pulled out of service daily on a rotating basis citywide.

Rob Hunter leaned over his canary yellow, orange-flamed dune buggy 20 yards from the lapping Pismo Beach surf and ticked off specs with palpable pride. "This baby is a 400 horsepower V-8," he beamed. "It's got an LS1 Corvette engine . . . and perfectly balanced 50/50, just like a Corvette is." Any time Hunter, 48, can piece together a few spare days, he and his family camp here in the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, known to most duners as "Pismo."

Three months into its fiscal year, Los Angeles still faces a $400-million budget shortfall that could torpedo Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's effort to allow 2,400 city workers to retire ahead of schedule, forcing the City Council to reconsider layoffs. Budget advisors met privately with council members over the last week to stress the magnitude of the financial woes -- the city is spending $1 million per day more than it receives in revenue -- and urge them to take decisive action.

As President Obama presents his first budget today, the most daunting goal he has set may not be the ambitious proposals for economic recovery, healthcare reform or revamping the nation's energy policy. Big as those challenges are, they may be child's play compared with his promise to slash the federal budget deficit in half by the end of his first term. Two problems already are apparent if Obama is to cut the $1.3-trillion deficit to $533 billion.

As California schools brace for billions of dollars in budget cuts, the nation's top education official warned Friday that the state's students were in peril, and he challenged politicians and educators to embrace difficult reforms. "California used to lead the nation in education," said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaking to dozens of mayors, superintendents and school board trustees at San Francisco City Hall. "Honestly, California has lost its way.

Two committees of the Los Angeles City Council recommended Monday that the city stop hiring police officers starting next month and wait until January to see if the budget picture has improved enough to resume recruitment. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will veto the proposal if the full council approves it next week, officials in the mayor's office said. The Budget and Finance and Public Safety committees agreed to discontinue a new recruit class in November as part of the effort to eliminate a $405-million budget shortfall.

Wall Street is looking forward to learning California's short-term borrowing plans -- once Sacramento produces a fiscal 2010 budget more or less in balance. The bond market has been expecting that the state would seek short-term financing to bridge the gap between current cash needs and future tax revenue. Normally, this kind of borrowing -- via so-called revenue anticipation notes, or RANs -- is no big deal.

The last time Indiana missed its deadline for passing a budget and had to shut down the government was during the Civil War. But on Monday, as lawmakers raced to hammer out an agreement over school funding, state agencies began preparing 31,000 workers to be temporarily out of a job. Republican Gov.

For most working Californians, I suspect, the holiday season is only a distant memory. They're back deep into the grind. And it will be months before there's another company-paid official holiday, Memorial Day. For state employees, however, the holiday season never seems to end. Their first relief from the back-to-work grind will come Monday, Martin Luther King Day. In February, they'll get two holidays four days apart: Lincoln's birthday and Washington's birthday.

In the spirit of the New Reality of today's world, I'd like to propose a change in the California state motto. Instead of "Eureka (I have found it)," which lately has been sounding a little threadbare, how about this one, derived from the glide path of our public systems of higher education: "California -- penny-wise, pound-foolish"?