"California's record budget standoff ended Thursday when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and
legislative leaders struck a deal, avoiding the governor's promised veto of a spending plan the Legislature
approved earlier in the week," writes Matthew Yi in the Chron.
"The $104 billion budget, expected to be approved today by the
Assembly and Senate, eliminates proposals for extra
withholdings from workers' paychecks and revenue from a tax amnesty program.
It bridges a $17 billion budget gap in part by increasing penalties
on corporations that underpay income taxes and reduces
reserve funds, legislative leaders said."
It's a budget and we can get out of town. Need we say more? Most importantly, Lloyd Levine can make it to his wedding and honeymoon.
"'Hopefully this will bring an end to 80-plus painful days in the state of California that we
have gone without a budget,' said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County).
"The prolonged budget impasse resulted in the withholding
of billions of dollars of state funds from health clinics,
hospitals, schools, day care centers and college students.
The agreement ends Schwarzenegger's threat to veto hundreds of bills that await his signature.
"'It's time to get this budget done. It's been way too long,' Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto said after emerging from a meeting Thursday
afternoon between the governor and the other three
legislative leaders.
"Lawmakers also agreed to Schwarzenegger's demand to make it more difficult for the state to
dip into a new rainy-day fund. The fund is designed to avoid future fiscal crises
like the one this year, when a sluggish economy resulted
in a huge budget deficit.
"The 10 percent increase in tax withholdings from workers' paychecks has been taken out, but the budget still requires individuals and businesses that make
quarterly estimated tax payments to pay 60 percent of their taxes in the first half of the 2009 calendar year rather than 50 percent.
"The new budget fills the deficit in part by doubling
the penalty on corporations that consistently underpay
taxes. The agreement also would leave the state with a cash
reserve of $900 million rather than the $1.2 billion in the budget approved by the Legislature."
Now let's see what the political fall out is...
The LAT's Evan Halper and Jordan Rau report: "'I'm not proud of this budget -- it just kicks the can down the road,' Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) said after a meeting in the governor's office Thursday."
For the record, we have now kicked the can down the street, alley and road.
"Perata called the changes demanded by the governor 'tweaks.'"
Dan Walters is not impressed, and floats a $7 billion deficit number for next year. Anyone taking the action on the over/under?
"California's powerful prison guards union overwhelmingly reelected its president here Thursday after a contentious race that became a referendum on the group's decision this month to launch a recall campaign against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger," reports Michael Rothfeld in the Times.
"Though there had been some dissension among members
about the recall, 447 union delegates who voted at the California Correctional
Peace Officers Assn. convention gave an apparent mandate
to Mike Jimenez, 47, their president since 2002, to wage war on the governor.
"After his victory, with 70% of the delegates' support, Jimenez described the governor with an obscenity
and called him "a clown," and vowed to "go to the mat" to oust him.
"'This governor's going to know he's been in a fight,' Jimenez said. 'When it's said and done, somebody's going to be standing, and somebody's not. It's going to be him that's not standing, and us that is.'"
Wow, that's Dean Wormer-esque...
"California regulators reacting to the deadly wreck
of a commuter train issued an emergency order Thursday
banning train operators from using cell phones on duty," reports the AP's Daisy Nguyen.
"The Public Utilities Commission's unanimous decision to pass the temporary order came
a day after investigators confirmed that the engineer
of the Metrolink commuter train was text-messaging while on duty on the day the train ran a
red light and collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train. Last week's wreck in Los Angeles killed 25 people, including the engineer, and injured more than
130.
"Some railroads — including Metrolink — prohibit operators from using cell phones on the job,
but the commission's president, Michael R. Peevey, has said the rules are widely ignored. There is no
federal regulation of cell-phone use by railroad workers and until Thursday there
had been no California rules."
And those of you who still have landlines may be paying more in the near future , the Chron's Ryan Kim reports.
" Providers of residential phone service will be allowed to raise their monthly basic rates by as much as $3.25 in each of the next two years and, as of 2011, charge whatever price they see fit, the California Public Utilities Commission said today, ending a 13-year freeze on rates.
"
Commissioner Rachelle Chong said the move will provide consumers with two years of price protections. After that, she said, market forces will set pricing in the highly competitive phone market.
"Given the increase in competition for voice by cable, wireless and Internet phone provides, by the end of the 2010, these rate caps will no longer be necessary," Chong said. "The market will be so competitive it will discipline prices."
"Facing dramatic pension shortfalls in the future, the
University of California Regents voted yesterday to restart employee and university
pension contributions for the first time in nearly
20 years," reports James Sweeney in the U-T.
"The annual tab is expected to run up to $1.4 billion. The university is expected pay most of the tab, but it almost certainly will prove difficult to find the revenue to fund such a large expense."
Ah, just take it out of the classrooms...
"UC officials have complained for years about declining
state support and are facing a more than $100 million shortfall in the university's $18 billion budget. Only about $3 billion of that comes from the state, which will probably
be asked to pick up a share of the UC's pension obligations.
"'The contribution level we're headed for is close to 20 percent' of payroll, Vice Chairman Russell Gould told his fellow regents. 'It is absolutely essential that we face this . . .
This is a sizable commitment.'
"Since 1990, the university system and its employees have financed
more than $1 billion a year in pension payments to more than 50,000 retirees from enviable earnings on its $42 billion pension fund."
The Chron's Carla Marinucci reports, "GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin, who energized California Republicans by announcing her first major campaign swing here next week, has rescheduled the high-dollar fundraisers in both Northern and Southern California, campaign officials said.
"Palin was to hit the Golden State next Thursday and Friday for a two-day swing, and the change of plans came as a shock to party insiders, who were distributing 15,000 tickets to her Friday rally in Orange County. There was no information on when or if the rally will be rescheduled.
"Palin's $1,000-a-head fundraising events Thursday in Orange County and the Bay Area generated such high ticket sales that they were moved to bigger venues - the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Santa Clara Convention Center.
McCain campaign spokesman Rick Gorka would only confirm events have been taken off the calender because of scheduling conflicts.
"The change comes in the same week a new Field Poll showed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama still leads Republican John McCain in California by a whopping 16-point margin.
"Palin's pullout raises speculation that the GOP ticket, which has insisted it will compete here, may be reassessing its presence in the Golden State."
Doesn't "reassess" imply that they were actually serious about competing here at one point?
And from our Egyptian Crime Blotter, "An Egyptian donkey has been jailed for stealing corn on the cob from a field belonging to an agricultural research institute in the Nile Delta, local media reported today.
"The ass and its owner were apprehended at a police checkpoint that had been set up after the institute's director complained that someone was stealing his crops, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily said."
And finally, from our If At First You Don't Succeed Files, the resno Bee reports, "A man acquitted a month ago of robbing a bank has been arrested in another robbery at the same bank. The man, 35, was accused of robbing Liberty Bank on Tuesday, police say.
"The man was acquitted Aug. 21 of robbing the bank last October after employees could not positively identify him during his trial."