For the first time, Republicans have offered a detailed budget blueprint. It does not contain new taxes or tax extensions and cuts deeply into state social services and the bureaucracy. The announcement comes just days before Brown revises his own budget plan to reflect the latest tax revenues.
From the LAT's Shane Goldmacher: "The plan, unveiled by Assembly Republicans four days before Brown will update his financial blueprint, would fund public schools at roughly the same level as the governor has proposed and avert further reductions to state universities. It also contains a razor-thin reserve of less than 1%."
"The plan may run aground in the
Democratic-controlled Legislature, which has already rejected many of the
Republicans' ideas. Their proposal would cut roughly $1.3 billion in services
for the needy, which Brown proposed in January and which Democratic lawmakers have
blocked. Those services include welfare grants, adult day-care centers, in-home
assistance for the elderly and help for the disabled."
"The state workforce would face
layoffs or pay cuts totaling 10%. An additional 10% would be taken out of
departments' operating and equipment budgets. Combined, those cutbacks would
save $1.7 billion."
The president of the California Teachers Association was among a dozen teachers who were arrested at the Capitol last night as they protested cuts that are looming in the schools' budgets. Mike Mishak in the LA Times tells the tale.
"The teachers congregated in the hallways outside the offices of the Legislature’s top two Republican leaders, Sen. Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga and Assemblywoman Connie Conway of Tulare, and refused to leave when the building closed at 6 p.m., said Officer Sean Kennedy, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol."
"While Kennedy gave a preliminary arrest count of 13 people, the teachers union issued a news release putting the number at 26. The arrests mark the second time this week that law enforcement has had to break up the union’s events. On Monday, CHP arrested 65 people after an event in the Capitol rotunda, where protesters –- mostly college students -- chanted, yelled and danced…"
"The teachers union said the arrests were meant to draw attention to Republican opposition to the tax extensions favored by Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislators. Earlier in the day, Republicans produced their own plan to balance the state’s budget, arguing that higher-than-expected tax collections this year will produce $2.5 billion in education funding, without new levies or extensions."
Speaking of money and education, a little-known perk for some UC employees is putting a significant strain on the system. Bay Citizen's Jennifer Gollan tells the tale.
"At various points since 1992, the university has diverted about $875 million from its regular retirement fund to finance supplemental retirement benefits, in part to make up for salary cuts or meager increases tied to state budgets. But now the university system is carrying a roughly $1.3 billion obligation to more than 100,700 faculty, staff and administrators who were promised generous returns on those initial sums that the university salted away for them."
"The initial goal of expanding these benefits under the so-called Capital Accumulation Payment plan was to attract and retain talented employees. But university officials acknowledged that there was no clear evidence that that aim had been achieved."
"And while the supplemental plan represents a small fraction of the university’s overall pension obligations, it is compounding the system’s financial problems, which include an overall pension deficit of $14 billion tied to investment losses and a 20-year hiatus on contributions from the university system and employees that ended in April."
The online poker bill didn't meet a key committee deadline, but it is alive and kicking -- with a new urgency clause. The Press-Enterprise's Jim Miller has the story.
"On Thursday, however, the author of SB 40 announced that he was adding an urgency clause to the legislation, keeping it alive indefinitely."
"With federal action looming and the market wide open, we have to quickly authorize online poker in California," state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, said in a statement. "To delay will mean loss of more than $1.4 billion in new state revenue at a time when it is severely needed."
"Two successful Inland tribes with casinos strongly back the measure: the Morongo Band of Mission Indians near Banning and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians near San Bernardino. A second bill, which also has an urgency clause, would legalize all types of online gambling, not just poker"
Gov. Brown has rejected numerous invitations to speak before the Sacramento Press Club, although it is has been the custom of governors to meet the newsies. The OC Register's Brian Joseph tells the tale.
"Gov. Jerry Brown is refusing to speak to the Sacramento Press Club, an association of Capitol correspondents and other media professionals that has hosted Q and As with every governor since Ronald Reagan, including Brown during his first stint as governor."
"Brown and his staff have offered no explanations for why he has refused every invitation from the press club, which has repeatedly asked him to speak since he was elected attorney general in 2006. The press club announced yesterday it has given up asking Brown to speak. (Full disclosure: I’m the vice president of the press club, although I personally haven’t been involved in the asking.)"
"The Sacramento Press Club is one of the few organizations in Sacramento that puts politicians in front of the journalists in an environment the politicians don’t control. When a lawmaker speaks before the press club, there’s no staffer shouting “One more question.” Everyone who wants to ask something gets a chance."
Among Jerry Brown's biggest supporters during last year's campaign were Latinos, and now they are looking for support from the governor: There are bills in the Capitol that they care deeply about.
From the Bee's Jim Sanders: "Latino census growth, the pending redrawing of political districts and the election of a Democrat for the state's top office create a confluence of opportunity not seen in years, activists say."
"We are turning back the ugliness of a previous period, piece by piece," Nativo Lopez of the Mexican American Political Association said of the 1990s, when voters approved a ban on public benefits to illegal immigrants that later was deemed unconstitutional."
"The latest action on a Latino bill came Thursday, when the Assembly passed a measure inspired by Pedro Ramirez, student body president at Fresno State University, that would allow undocumented immigrants to receive a stipend, grant or scholarship for serving in student government at a state university or community college."
And from our "Love Will Find a Way" file, we learn of the tale of the teen-ager who dumped her boyfriend and married his father. Not quite the eternal triangle, but interesting nonetheless and, no, this isn't West Virginia.
"For most teenage girls, meeting their boyfriend’s parents is a nerve-racking prospect. But for Vicky Collins it went much better than she could have imagined. In fact, she managed to bag herself a husband."
"It wasn’t so good for then boyfriend Shaun Collins, though, who had no idea introducing her to dad Andy would end with them getting engaged behind his back."
"Despite Andy being 23 years her senior, Vicky, then 16, couldn’t fight her attraction for him. And one night, after Shaun had gone to bed early, she and Andy slept together. They quickly started a passionate affair and when the truth came out, it blew the family apart."
I'll bet...