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CDCAN Report #013-2011 contains transcript of Governor Brown’s remarks to the press following his January 10 state budget proposal, and reaction from legislative leaders:
Assembly and Senate Budget Committees Set to Hold Informational Hearings for Overview on Governor’s Proposed Budget on Thursday
Assembly Budget Committee To Meet At 10 AM – Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee To Meet At 1 PM – No Action Likely By Either Committee – Hearings Likely To Be Scheduled Soon to Hear Specific Proposals With Governor Wanting Budget and Related Bills Passed By March
SACRAMENTO, CALIF (CDCAN) [Updated 01/11/2011 01:00 AM (Pacific Time)] - The Assembly Budget Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield (Democrat – San Fernando Valley) and the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee, chaired by Sen. Mark Leno (Democrat – San Francisco), will hold informational hearings for an overview of Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2011-2012 State Budget plan, on January 13, Thursday at the State Capitol..
Neither hearing will take up specific budget proposals or take public testimony, but hear an overview of the budget proposal from the Legislative Analyst Office, the non-partisan legislative office that analyzes the budget and other budget related issues for the Legislature, and also likely a representative from the Governor’s Department of Finance.
Both hearings will be televised on CalChannel (check your local cable listings) and webcasted live on the CalChannel website at www.calchannel.com
The Governor’s proposed budget plan calls for major permanent spending cuts of over $12.5 billion, revenues, including extension of $8 billion in temporary tax increases that are scheduled to expire this year unless voters vote to extend them in a yet to be scheduled June special election (likely June 15th).
The Governor’s plan calls for massive reductions to several health and human service programs including Medi-Cal, developmental services (including regional centers), In-Home Supportive Services, SSI/SSP (Supplemental Security Income/State Supplemental Payment program) and the related program for legal immigrants with disabilities, the blind and seniors who don’t qualify for SSI – the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, CalWORKS, Healthy Families, and mental health.
Hearings on specific budget proposals will likely be scheduled soon, with Governor Brown urging the Legislature to pass the 2011-2012 State Budget and budget related bills by March, several months before the start of the 2011-2012 State budget year (July 1st), as it did in 2009. The Governor said on Monday that early action on the budget is needed in order to place several measures on a June special election ballot. The special election will likely be called by the Governor for June 15th.
JANUARY 13, 2011 – THURSDAY MORNING
ASSEMBLY BUDGET COMMITTEE
10:00 AM – State Capitol – Room 4202
Informational Hearing – Subject: Overview of the Governor’s 2011–2012 State Budget
PRIORITY: High
CDCAN COMMENT: Overview only – not a hearing on specific budget proposals or issues and no public testimony will likely be taken at this particular hearing.
JANUARY 13, 2011 – THURSDAY AFTERNOON
SENATE BUDGET AND FISCAL REVIEW COMMITTEE
1:00 PM – State Capitol – Room 4203
Informational Hearing – Subject: Overview of the Governor’s 2011–2012 State Budget
PRIORITY: High
CDCAN COMMENT: Overview only – not a hearing on specific budget proposals or issues and no public testimony will likely be taken at this particular hearing. This hearing is pending approval by Senate Rules Committee of the committee membership.
TRANSCRIPT OF GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN’S REMARKS JANUARY 10 PRESS CONFERENCE RELEASING GOVERNOR’S PROPOSED 2011-2012 STATE BUDGET:
“This morning, I am proposing a balanced budget that cuts $12.5 billion from proposed state spending and gives California a vast and historic restructuring of government functions. For years, different activities are shifted and shuttled back and forth between state and local government. What I propose will be painful—it’s going to take sacrifice from every sector of California—but for 10 years, this state has put together its budget with gimmicks and tricks and unrealistic expectations that have pushed this state deeper and deeper into debt. It’s time now to restore California to fiscal solvency and put us on the road to economic recovery and jobs.
Now since it’s going to take some time to fully implement the restructuring program, I’m going to ask for five years of extension of existing current taxes. This will allow the restructuring to proceed in an orderly way.
My proposed restructuring will return decisions and authority—as much as possible—to cities and counties and schools. And in that way, there will be greater accountability, transparency, and hopefully citizen participation because government will be closer to the people. Schools have borne the brunt of spending reductions, and in this budget, we are going to keep them at a level spending.
So in order to give you some more details—so you’ll see exactly how it works—we have a PowerPoint and I’m going to quickly go over it and then I’ll take questions and Ana will be here to take whatever I can’t answer.
So, the first slide we will just hit the highlights, which is we’re cutting spending $12.5 billion, we’re reducing employee compensation and we have the restructuring plan.
Looking backward, we’ve had 10 years of gimmicks and tricks. The economic recovery bonds could cost several billion dollars this year. We securitized the tobacco settlement funds, instead of getting them year after year. We sold them in one year and got a big lump sum but then deprived the state of future revenue. We shifted state payroll from the end of the fiscal year, one day forward, and that created an illusion that there was actually a billion dollars in savings, when actually it was nothing at all like that. Then we had a Medi-Cal accounting shift from accrual to cash. We had the attempted sale of the Ed Fund and the State Compensation Fund. Then we had these optimistic revenue forecasts. All of that puts us in the mess, it’s not honest, and we’re now going to make it as transparent as possible.
The state faces an enormous budget problem—you see it, there it is—approximately $20 billion going forward. Not going to get better, unless we do something. Now some people are going to say, “Why don’t we just borrow, kick the can down the road?” The problem is, next year, there’s not that much more money, but then we’ll have debt service and a bigger burden to pay back. It’s better to take our medicine now and get this state on a balanced footing.
If you look at the proposed solutions—after the white there—is the deficit that goes away. We actually get a little surplus in the second year and in the third year we’re about even. So, even with all of these cuts and the continuation of the revenues, it’s still a tight squeeze and we’re going to have to watch how we spend things.
Go to the next slide. The budget proposes a comprehensive solution. It’s a balanced approach. You’ve got $12 billion in cuts. We protect kindergarten through 12th grade education and public safety. And then we return decision to local authorities to make government more efficient. And if you look forward several years, we have the budget in balance.
Give us the next slide. You can see the exact numbers, they just lay them out there. You see the total spending in a year and a half—in the current year and the budget year—it’s about $12 billion. And the other is borrowing from some special funds, and because we have one time costs, we think that is an appropriate way to go.
Now let’s take up the next slide you can see actually what some of these cuts are. Medi-Cal: a billion-six. That’s a serious, very difficult cut. CalWORKs: that’s a billion and a half. That’s reducing eligibility—the time that a person can spend on welfare—it hits a number of aspects, including childcare and all the rest. University of California and the state colleges: another billion dollars. A very difficult cut. Developmental Services: three quarters of a billion. In Home Supportive Services: about a half a billion. And then the lower take home pay for the employees that have not yet signed the collective bargaining agreements.
Okay, can we do the next slide? If you look at Proposition—the school funding—you notice that there has been a substantial cut. And when you say Proposition 98, what you mean is state spending, state money and property taxes put together. And you see there has been quite a cut. If we go on with current statutes, you see there’s a cut of $2 billion, over $2 billion. Now with my program—including the extension of the taxes—schools will be held even at $49 billion. Slight cut there, but held pretty even. Since they’ve taken the bulk of the cuts, that makes a lot of since to me.
You want to take the next slide? Now, part of it—more of the pain—we’re going to take out $400 million from the community colleges, and we’re going to do that by making the census not so early in the year, but so it will reflect the actual students that are in school, because a number drop courses or actually drop out of school entirely. The second, we propose to increase fees $10. It’s still the lowest fee structure for a community college in the country. That’s number one. And number two, half the students get some type of scholarship assistance. So the people who are really at the low-income level, they should be protected. And then finally, I mentioned the child care. It’s again, three quarters of a billion in cuts. These are not affluent people. It’s very, very difficult, but that’s where we are in terms of how we have to deal with it.
Okay, this realignment, now what is that all about? Fire. Increasing urbanization in former wild land areas. We want to study what is truly urban. What should be a local fire responsibility and what is truly state? And that’s a process that the Board of Forestry will engage in.
Court security. The state is paying for it, but the agreements that are made to set the payments for court security are made locally. We want to give a revenue stream and let the local courts figure out how much they want to pay for their security. Basically, it’s the sheriff’s department and they should negotiate that with money we’ll provide them. But they’ll have to make the decisions, instead of just sending the bill to the state.
Community based corrections is a very significant realignment proposal. We find today almost 50,000 individuals are sent to prison and stay less than 90 days. I feel that this is something that should be handled locally. And in addition to that, a number of parole activities can also be handled by probation. And we’ll shift the money to deal with that, but what we have right now is we have the counties that can just send people to prison for a couple of months and save money. We want to align responsibility with funding. So, we’ll give them the money, but then they make the tough decisions on how they want to manage it. And since they have many other decisions to make, this kind of realignment, I think, will make it all work better.
Same is true with mental health services, foster care, child welfare, substance abuse. Related activities are handled by the county, and if they have the total bundle of services, we feel they can make better decisions. And of course, we are going to send the money down to pay for that.
There’s the dedicated revenues, 1 percent of the sales tax, 0.5 percent of the vehicle license fee. Now one very important point: when these taxes go away in five years, the state will still be obligated to maintain the funding. We will commit to that. So people are not going to say, “Oh, you’re going to give us five years, then what?” The state will continue, even if the taxes go away.
Finally, the last slide: ending subsidies. Redevelopment has done some important things and we don’t—I don’t—want to interfere with any redevelopment bond or commitment that has been contractually entered into. But going forward, the redevelopment takes money from schools, cities, and counties, and we want that money to be available, because all that’s happened in the redevelopment is that the state has to backfill and pay to make up for the property taxes that are taken by redevelopment. So, in effect, what we’re doing here is spending money at the local level that the state doesn’t have. So we want to take that money and leave it at the local level for the purposes that it was historically intended. That’s police or fire or local activities, county, or schools.
And we’re going to provide—as you’ll see the last bullet point—that we have an idea that we could develop a provision that if local government wants to develop an economic development program over time, they should have the authority to do that. And so that’s a provision that I’m going to work out with the Legislature.
Enterprise zones, again, these are all—they have their good points—but it is almost a billion dollars, and overall they don’t add to the general economy of the state. They move money around. And I know both these things in Oakland were helpful, but I can tell you this: that if the local government cleans up their regulatory underbrush—really goes out and helps people develop and overcomes a lot of the NIMBY-ism—that you can do economic development in a very solid way. I saw that in Jack London Square, where redevelopment didn’t play a role, but certainly there was a lot of development.
So I think we’ll stop it there, and if you have any questions, I’ll be glad to take them.”
COMMENTS FROM LEGISLATIVE LEADERS ON GOVERNOR’S BUDGET
The following are statements issued by the State Senate and Assembly Democratic and Republican leaders, the chairs of the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee and the Assembly Budget Committee and the vice chair of the Assembly Budget Committee. There was no statement issued by Sen. Bob Huff (Republican – Diamond Bar), who is vice chair of the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee for the special session (no vice chair or members have yet been announced yet for the regular session of the Senate Budget & Fiscal Review Committee)
SENATE PRESIDENT PRO TEM DARRELL STEINBERG (DEMOCRAT – SACRAMENTO)
Sen. Steinberg issued the following statement on January 10th after the release of Governor’s proposed budget:
“The Governor’s proposed budget is complete and it is balanced.
His budget asks the Legislature and the public to make some of the most difficult choices we have ever been asked to make.
But as unappealing and painful as the Governor’s proposed budget is, the only thing worse is to allow this fiscal crisis to linger.
Its continued domination of our energy, time, and attention prevents our state from focusing on the myriad of positive opportunities to create a 21st century education system, a high wage clean energy economy, and building strength in our regions and local communities.
I appreciate the seriousness with which the Governor has developed his budget proposals and I have committed to him that the Senate will begin reviewing his proposals immediately.
The Senate is ready to get to work on solving this budget crisis—now.
In fact, I have asked Senator Leno [chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee] to convene a meeting of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee this Thursday to begin reviewing the Governor’s specific proposals.
While our review this year may be truncated in terms of calendar days, it will be rigorous, with a purposeful determination to develop serious solutions for serious times.
And while the choices we face are difficult, our review will ensure that the budget we enact this year protects as much as possible for those in need, lays the groundwork for sustained economic growth, and preserves and expands job opportunities for Californians.”
ASSEMBLY SPEAKER JOHN PEREZ (DEMOCRAT – LOS ANGELES)
Assembly Speaker John Perez (Democrat – Los Angeles) issued the following statement on January 10th after the release of the Governor’s proposed budget plan:
“The Governor’s budget is the starting point of a responsible fiscal plan for California. I look forward to working with the Governor to approve a budget that will begin to eliminate our structural deficit and protect California jobs.”
SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER BOB DUTTON (REPUBLICAN – RANCHO CUCAMONGA)
Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton (Republican – Rancho Cucamonga) issued the following statement January 10th after the release of the Governor’s proposed budget plan:
“Governor Brown’s budget proposal contains difficult but necessary spending reductions, which Republicans have supported in the past as the best way to address our state budget deficit.
Unfortunately, the governor’s proposal is not a complete plan because it assumes voters will support major tax increases, but doesn’t provide solutions if they reject them.
If voters say “no” to the tax hikes, as Republicans expect, it means a $10 billion budget hole come June.
First things first! Democrats need to make permanent spending reductions and enact reforms that change the way state government operates.
There’s nothing in this budget to help stimulate the economy and create jobs. Senate Republicans believe higher taxes will further delay putting Californians back to work.”
ASSEMBLY REPUBLICAN LEADER CONNIE CONWAY (REPUBLICAN – TULARE)
Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway (Republican – Tulare) issued the following statement January 10th after the release of the Governor’s proposed spending plan:
“Assembly Republicans stand united as the last line of defense for California taxpayers. There are not votes in the Assembly Republican Caucus to place the same tax increases that voters overwhelmingly rejected less than two years ago back on the ballot. Californians have sent a strong message at the polls that they want Sacramento to make government live within its means. Assembly Republicans are ready to work with the Governor and Democrats to achieve an on-time, balanced budget that respects the will of the voters.”
SEN. MARK LENO (DEMOCRAT – SAN FRANCISCO), CHAIR OF SENATE BUDGET & FISCAL REVIEW COMMITTEE
Senator Mark Leno, chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, issued the following statement January 10th after the release of the Governor’s proposed budget plan:
“We are facing a budget crisis of epic proportion, and Governor Brown’s proposal reflects that sobering fact.
I am committed to working with the Governor, my colleagues in the Legislature and the people of California to resolve our fiscal emergency.
As we give careful consideration to each of the governor’s ideas, we recognize that difficult cuts have to be made in a way that spares the pain and suffering of our most vulnerable citizens.
In order to prevent the worsening of our fiscal situation in the next few months, it is also critical to consider new revenue and thoughtful tax reform and ask voters to weigh in on what they want from their government and how to pay for it.
It will take bold leadership to make the needed systemic changes, find additional resources and make targeted cuts to help heal California’s budget, stimulate our economy, create new jobs and restore luster to our great state.”
ASSEMBLYMEMBER BOB BLUMENFIELD (DEMOCRAT – SAN FERNANDO VALLEY), CHAIR OF THE ASSEMBLY BUDGET COMMITTEE
Assemblymember Bob Blumenfield (Democrat – San Fernando Valley), chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, issued January 10th the following statement after the release of the Governor’s proposed budget plan:
“Brown’s call for change doesn’t hold anything back. His vision acknowledges that we are long past a debate about cuts and taxes. California government must be restructured in order to be more responsive and cost-effective.
Brown is appropriately asking the people to be part of the solution. Moving forward, we must ensure that Californians are equipped for the challenge by confronting enduring budget myths.
Most Californians think we can balance our budget only by eliminating waste. And most oppose cuts to the areas that make up most of the budget. These expectations don’t match reality.
The budget is more than a bunch of numbers on a ledger. It’s about jobs and our economy. The Assembly Budget Committee will meet to review Brown’s budget through this lens on Thursday. I look forward to working with him to ensure that this time of great challenges and sacrifice transforms California into an even better place.”
ASSEMBLYMEMBER JIM NIELSEN (REPUBLICAN – GERBER), VICE CHAIR OF THE ASSEMBLY BUDGET COMMITTEE
Assemblymember Jim Nielsen (Republican – Gerber) issued January 10th the following statement after the release of the Governor’s proposed budget plan:
“Governor Brown today presented his approach to closing California’s $25.4 billion deficit. The next step in this process is setting priorities and finding the absolutely necessary functions of government.
We must look at ways to maximize every dollar and spend no more than the state takes in. There’s no doubt that difficult choices lie ahead, but working together I know we can find common-ground for reforms that make government more accountable to the people.”
