California Governor calls for tax extensions, spending cuts
By Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times
January 9, 2011 There will be little to like and something for just about everyone to hate. But it is in giving Californians a dose of painful budgetary truth that Brown hopes to succeed. To tame the state’s chronic budget shortfalls, the Democratic governor will request cuts in a broad array of state programs and services, particularly those that lend a hand to the needy, according to those familiar with his plan. He will call on lawmakers to sharply curb welfare spending by reducing eligibility and payouts and cutting the duration of benefits from five years to four. Under Brown’s plan, Medi-Cal would let patients see the doctor less often and would require them to pay more when they do. Children in the state’s Healthy Families insurance program would no longer receive vision coverage, and their families would pay more for medical care. The governor will also ask voters to approve an extension of 2009 tax hikes on their incomes, purchases and vehicles in a spring special election, insiders say, and he will tie the tax extension to protecting school funding. Brown will propose trimming expenditures on universities and cash grants for the poor. And he wants to lower the maximum age for children who benefit from state-subsidized child care. In addition, he will try to curtail money for redevelopment and other business-friendly tax provisions. To succeed, Brown must execute a two-step that tripped up his immediate predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many other governors. First, he must sell his plan to Sacramento insiders — legislators and lobbyists — and second, he must persuade the public to embrace his austerity package. …
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tame budget with tax extensions, deep cuts
The budget Jerry Brown will propose Monday includes deep program cuts, a June election to extend tax increases and a broad reordering of state and local government to close a deficit estimated at $25 billion to $28 billion, according to sources familiar with the plan. Here are some of the elements:
PROGRAM CUTS Brown’s proposed cuts would be felt throughout state government. • Education: Provide K-12 schools with Proposition 98 minimum guaranteed funding. If June tax extensions fail, the guarantee would be suspended to allow deeper cuts. • Higher education: Make deep cuts to both UC and CSU systems, in ways targeted to minimize fee hikes and enrollment reductions. • State employees: Reduce spending in the six bargaining units that have not reached contract agreements, with savings similar to the 8 percent to 10 percent to which other units agreed. • State organization: Consolidate some state departments and agencies. • Governor’s Office: Reduce budget by 25 percent ($7 million), including elimination of education secretary, Cabinet secretaries and first lady’s staff. • Parks: Shut state parks with lowest attendance. • Libraries: Cut state funding for local libraries. • Medi-Cal: Require patients to provide co-payments for services, limit doctor visits and reduce rates paid to health providers. • Healthy Families: Increase participant premiums and co-pays, eliminate vision care. • Welfare: Cut grants, impose stricter time limits on recipients getting grants, eliminate child care for 11- and 12-year-olds. • SSI-SSP: Cut grants to the federal minimum for low-income elderly, blind and disabled individuals in the program. • In-home care: Reduce the number of hours In-Home Supportive Services workers could care for elderly and disabled residents, cut domestic services like cleaning and laundry in cases in which caregivers live in the same home as recipients, typically family members. • Developmental services: Make deep cuts to the system of 21 regional centers that oversee care for the developmentally disabled. • Mental health: Use voter-approved Proposition 63 money to replace general fund money now spent on mental health. • Children’s programs: Ask voters to amend Proposition 10 to allow the state to use tobacco tax money now reserved for use by “First 5” commissions. • Foster care: Eliminate transitional housing aid for 18- and 19-year-olds. • Cal Fire: Reduce staffing on wildfires. • Courts: Deep unallocated reduction to trial courts. • Fairs: Cut all state funding for county fairs. • AIDS: Require higher co-payments for AIDS drugs. …
