California S Budget

Despite an economy on the mend, California's budget woes will drag deep into the next decade, according to a report released Wednesday by the state's chief budget analyst. Tax collections have leveled off after one of the most precipitous drops since the Great Depression. But revenue is not expected to fully bounce back until the 2014-15 budget year. State government faces a nearly $21-billion deficit over the next year and half, according to the report by nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor.

SALTON SEA STATE RECREATION AREA - During the heyday of the Salton Sea, when the Hollywood crowd and others came to play in large numbers, this strip of beaches, campsites and fishing spots along the sea's northern shore was one of California's most popular parks. But that was years ago. The popularity of the recreation area has plummeted in recent decades, and now the area is on a list of parks to be closed because of the state's financial woes. Unlike other parks slated for closure, this one may never come back, park officials said.

Re "Legislators uncork a plan to pick the pockets of the poor," column, July 23 State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez's (D-Los Angeles) celebration -- with two $150-plus bottles of wine -- of what lawmakers consider a budget-passage victory is like Nero fiddling. That passage is based on theft from voter-approved transit funds and cruelty toward the most vulnerable among us. And they'll get away with it because we will look the other way.

Re "State deficit estimate hits $16 billion," May 13 Again we are facing budget shortfalls that need to be made up by more taxes. Is there an end to California's financial crisis? Do we have to go from crisis to crisis with no light at the end of the tunnel? The Greek financial shadow is looming larger because the governor doesn't have the guts to make the changes to get our house in order. No one says, "Enough is enough. " I am glad I am 80 years old, but the future my children and grandchildren will endure frightens me to no end. H.K. Rahlfs Irvine The answer to every government deficit situation: "This means we will have to make cuts far greater than asked for at the beginning of the year in schools, public safety and services.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday that meddling with voter-approved funding guarantees for schools would cause "severe and long-lasting harm to both our students and our schools." The comments came in response to a proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to suspend the budgeting formula as part of a plan to wipe out California's $26.3-billion deficit. Calling the proposal "short-sighted" and "irresponsible," O'Connell said at a morning news conference that schools were being "made the scapegoat for the budget crisis."

As one of those hard-working average Americans in the top 1% of wage earners, I can't tell you how happy I am to be saving a few thousand dollars in taxes this year (May 29). What a waste it would be to spend this money on health care or education! Now I can buy myself yet another expensive wristwatch or a fourth computer. Shame on George W. Bush. Bruce R. Feldman Santa Monica Here is a suggestion for those who feel very strongly that President Bush's tax cut is the wrong thing to do. When you receive your check, simply endorse it to the U.S. Treasury and send it directly to Bush at the White House.

Regarding "Clearing Out Bad Data on Illegal Immigrants," Golden State, Dec. 22: Michael Hiltzik says California spends no more than $4.6 billion a year on illegal immigrants, and that California's budget gap is running $8 billion to $12 billion annually. When I do third-grade math, then illegal immigration represents 38% to 57.5% of the budget gap. That is not small change in my book. True, solving the illegal immigration problem won't solve the state's budget woes, but it sure would help.

An Assembly panel Thursday voted to trim $2 billion from California's budget, with cuts to education, healthcare and other programs. The move by the Assembly Budget Committee follows a similar vote Wednesday in the state Senate. The full Legislature is expected to vote on the cuts today in the lawmakers' first action to rein in the state's $14.5-billion deficit. The reductions are in response to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's declaration of a fiscal emergency last month. In the early cuts package, schools would lose $400 million.

California's budget woes deepened Tuesday as the state reported that tax receipts plummeted nearly $1 billion last month because of plunging corporate profits. The news comes as the state moves closer to the July 1 deadline for lawmakers to close California's budget gap, which had earlier been estimated at $16 billion, and there is little agreement on how to do that. Corporate taxes alone came into the state at $869 million below what was forecast in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget, released in January.

The Schwarzenegger administration, which was launched via an electoral campaign of majestic hypocrisy in 2003, has finally fulfilled all the heady promise of those distant days of the Gray Davis recall. Just a few days after being featured on "60 Minutes" talking about his commitment to "what is best for the people of California," he sneaked his sixth annual budget plan into the public spotlight on New Year's Eve.

This storied adobe mansion outside Los Angeles was once a getaway for California's last governor under Mexican rule, a landowner so wealthy he called the nearly 9,000 acres of land around it his "ranchito. " Now, state budget cuts have reduced supporters of Pio Pico State Historic Park to begging for recyclables to cash in to keep the gates to the 1850s landmark from closing. As California moves to close dozens of state parks by July 1 to save money, those fighting to prevent the closures are growing increasingly desperate.

There are almost always good reasons not to cut programs from the state budget. Those programs or services wouldn't have been funded in the first place if at least some people hadn't found reason to like them. But cut California must, despite protests from interest groups that this or that beloved budget item must be preserved in full. That's why a proposal by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) is so appealing. Instead of demanding restoration of funds, Huffman proposes a more constructive response to the closure of up to 70 state parks.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Public school funds will probably be cut this year even if voters approve Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed tax hikes in November, the state's top budget advisor said Wednesday. That analysis undercuts a central premise of Brown's new budget plan: that his tax hikes would save schools from billions of dollars in reductions. Districts are likely to trim spending anyway, said Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, rather than wait for voters to decide in November. "Districts have to plan for the worst case," said Taylor, whom lawmakers look to for nonpartisan financial advice.

Its buildings have survived droughts and earthquakes. But now Los Encinos State Historic Park faces another kind of hardship: state budget cuts. The San Fernando Valley park is among 70 state parks facing closure because California needs to save money. But local residents won't give up the cherished refuge without a fight. "Generations of people have come to this park. It's such a waste to close it," said Kathy Moghimi-Patterson, an Encino Neighborhood Council board member who is leading the campaign to save Los Encinos.

Reporting from Sacramento and Los Angeles -- Gov. Jerry Brown announced nearly $1 billion in new state budget cuts, slashing spending on higher education and eliminating funding for free school-bus service but avoiding the deeper reductions to public schools that many had feared. Services for the disabled, money for public libraries and funding for state prisons will also be pared. Most of the cuts, announced Tuesday, will take effect Jan. 1. The reductions were built into the budget that Brown and lawmakers approved in June, set to kick in if revenue did not reach the optimistic level they had assumed.

Reporting from Sacramento -- California's precariously balanced state budget, already teetering in the continuing economic upheaval, came under further siege Tuesday as two groups announced lawsuits challenging the spending plan. School officials, including those at the L.A. Unified School District, said they would file suit Wednesday alleging that Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislators illegally manipulated California's voter-approved education funding formula to shortchange them by $2 billion.

Legislators and the governor, hamstrung by voter initiatives, play a shell game with California's budget to cloak deficits and questionable borrowing, a blue-ribbon commission concluded Tuesday. The 23-member California Citizens Budget Commission offered 31 recommendations to speed up budget deliberations, assure public scrutiny and limit what it called needless gridlock in the Capitol.

Closing California's deficit this year would be immeasurably easier if the state weren't paying for a 10-year borrowing binge. Without that tab, officials could scrap plans to close state parks, force nearly a million low-income children to go without eye care and take in-home aid away from hundreds of thousands of elderly, blind and disabled residents. But the state has had an insatiable appetite for debt in recent years. In the last decade, the debt per resident has tripled, to $2,362, according to the credit-rating agency Moody's Investors Service.

To drive the 405 Re "Plan to shut 405 alarms hospital leaders," June 25, and "Gearing up for a lost weekend," June 29 The temporary closure of the 405 Freeway in a little more than two weeks is causing so much anxiety. I remember a similar fear in 1984, when the Olympics were held in Los Angeles and panic for every driver set in long before the event began. The worry was for nothing, as the incredible Peter Ueberroth worked with the city and found ways to keep Los Angeles running so smoothly that you wished it was that way every day. To everyone's relief, the city didn't fall apart.

The state budget crafted by Gov. Jerry Brown and top Democratic lawmakers is the first in the wake of Proposition 25, and it fulfills both the fears of the measure's detractors and the hopes of its supporters. It was drawn up entirely by the Legislature's Democratic majority, which gave up trying to strike a deal with Republicans that would have included a raft of governmental reforms. On the other hand, it arrived for all intents and purposes on time, about two weeks after the statutory deadline but before the start of the new fiscal year July 1. California was thus spared, for the first time in years, the melodrama and confusion of another protracted budget stalemate.