Fingers crossed, people watching the state budget got a jolt on Monday: Controller John Chiang said revenues are coming in about $350 million below expectations, which means programs could be threatened.
The Bee's Kevin Yamamura has the story: "Based on Chiang's data the state is already behind the May-June milepost. He said the state took in only $849 million of the $1.2 billion in extra cash expected during that period - or $351 million less."
"We don't have a detailed cash flow (of Brown's budget) to break it down," said Chiang spokesman Jacob Roper. "We can't look at it and say whether it was softness in corporate tax refunds or excise taxes or withholdings being down."
"It's important to keep in mind that this is only negative news relative to optimistic assumptions that lawmakers relied upon to close the deficit. The state did take in more money than analysts projected earlier this year, as well as $1 billion, or 9 percent, more than in June 2010."
"While the Department of Finance often releases similar data to the controller's, it remains possible that Finance will provide different June totals later this month based on a different accounting method. Finance was not immediately available for comment."
Speaking of the budget, Democratic Assemblyman Anthony Portantino says his entire staff is getting whacked because he voted against his fellow Democrats' budget -- the sole Democrat to oppose the budget in the Assembly.
From Capitol Weekly's John Howard: "The consequences for voting my conscience were not long in coming," he added. Portantino said he received "a letter from Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, chair of the Rules Committee, (who) ...informed me that my previously-approved budget for office expenses has been slashed for the third and fourth quarters of this year. The letter further stated that 'effective Oct. 21, 2011 through Nov. 30, 2011,” my entire Capitol and District staff' will be placed on leave without pay."
"Skinner, D-Oakland, rejected Portantino's allegation as "curiously paranoid," saying he had been warned before about excessive spending in his office, and that the Rules Committee was charged with keeping a close eye on expenses."
"We are responsible for making sure that members do not expend beyond what is allocated," she said. "If every member were to over expend their budget by the amount that he has, we would have $5.4 million in excess spnding."
The Bee's Dan Walters takes a look at California's redistricting commission, and wonders if the whole process is imploding, a view held by redistricting expert and Rose Institute advocate Tony Quinn.
"As the commission was meeting last week, pressures of the legal and interest group demands, and the tight time frame for releasing final maps, were obvious. There was a frenetic quality as district lines were moved here and there."
"On Monday, Republican redistricting guru Tony Quinn published an Internet essay contending that the commission was "beset by rebellious consultants and manipulated by partisans" and its instructions to its staff were resulting in increasingly bizarre districts that reflected the partisan agendas of individual commission members."
"The commission itself said only that it was forgoing the second set of drafts "in order to produce the best district maps possible" and added, "The commission will be posting visualizations of proposed districts, and make equivalency files available for organizations and news outlets to provide greater detail to the public on the visualization proposals. The visualizations are proposed options for districts and are considered and discussed by the commission at their meetings instructing the line drawers."
Amazon, which just lost a major political battle over online taxation, is pushing to overturn California's new online sales tax law. The AP's Rachel Metz has the story.
"A petition for a referendum was filed Friday with the state Attorney General's Office so that voters can decide on the requirement, which was included in a state budget signed into law in late June."
"The new law forces online retailers to collect California sales taxes by expanding the definition of having a physical presence in the state. The requirement now kicks in if an online retailer has a related company, such as a marketing or product-development arm, or affiliates in the state -- individuals and companies that earn commissions by referring visitors to Amazon from their websites."
"Passage of the law, which is projected to help the state collect an additional $200 million annually, adds California to a growing list of states that have turned to such measures in hopes of bringing in more tax revenue. Its legislature passed a similar law in 2009, but then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it."