"The Legislature's chief budget analyst told lawmakers Tuesday that the budget revisions Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released this week
rely on 'overly optimistic' savings projections and short-term fixes that
could saddle the state with financial problems for years to come.
"Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst
Elizabeth G. Hill, whom lawmakers from both parties look to for advice on fiscal matters,
encouraged them to come up with alternative plans that "realistically balance the state's finances on an ongoing basis."
"
Hill cautioned lawmakers that the governor's proposal, if approved in full, would push the state deficit from $3 billion to $5 billion -- and possibly billions more -- by 2009.
"The administration stands "by their plan to help balance the budget by using money earmarked for public transportation, for example, despite Hill's warning that such a move violates the state Constitution.
"'
We think we are absolutely right on that and she is absolutely wrong,' said Department of Finance Director
Mike Genest. 'There is nothing in our budget we think is unrealistic.'
And so the budget dance begins...
Passing the budget just got a wee bit easier, thanks to Los Angeles voters. "
Democrat
Felipe Fuentes eked out a win over his four challengers and will represent Panorama City and Van Nuys in the state Assembly, according to unofficial returns," reports the Daily News's Susan Abrams.
"
Fuentes received 50.86 percent of the ballots cast for the 39th Assembly District - slightly more than the 50 percent plus one vote he needed to avert a July 10 runoff."
That means Fuentes will be in Sacramento in plenty of time to cast a vote for the budget, when the deal is finally hammered out...
Meanwhile, a showdown looms over how much businesses should have to pay to provide health care to Californians. "Escalating the already tense fight about what financial burden businesses should bear, the Democrats who control the Legislature
proposed Tuesday that most California employers be required to spend the equivalent of at least 7.5% of their payrolls on healthcare -- nearly twice the amount Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed," reports the LAT's Jordan Rau.
"The mandate on employers would raise more than $5 billion and -- along with federal taxpayer money and worker contributions -- allow California to extend insurance to about 69% of the 4.9 million people who lack it at any given moment. Among states, only Hawaii has a significant employer mandate. But the Democratic proposals in California would go further by including dependent coverage and more part-time workers.
"The employer contribution was the last outstanding detail the Democratic leaders of the California Senate and Assembly needed for their two comparable plans, which -- unlike Schwarzenegger's plan -- are advancing through the Legislature.
Capitol Weekly reports on the defeat of a bill that would have
banned hospitals from dumping of homeless patients on Skid Row.
"Moderate Democrats helped stall a bill in Senate Appropriations this week that sought to prevent hospitals from releasing and transporting homeless patients without their consent.
"The practice, known as 'patient dumping,' has received news coverage in Los Angeles, where 10 hospitals are under investigation for discharging patients to downtown's Skid Row.
City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo filed criminal and civil charges against Kaiser Permanente after a female patient, Carol Ann Reyes, was videotaped getting out of a taxi cab and wandering the downtown streets still dressed in her hospital gown."The bill, SB 275 authored by Los Angeles Democrat
Gil Cedillo, would prohibit hospitals from transporting newly discharged patients without their consent.
"
The bill passed the Senate Public Safety committee on a party-line 3-2 vote last month, where liberal Democrats enjoy a voting majority. But during Monday's hearing in Senate Appropriations, two Democrats - Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, and Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, voted against the bill."
The Bee's Denny Walsh reports, "The state unveiled
a new lethal injection plan Tuesday that calls for the
careful selection of an execution team, rigid training, a new death chamber and a team member in the chamber throughout the process to assess the inmate's consciousness.
"A San Jose federal judge in December found California's lethal injection protocol unconstitutional and urged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to see that changes were made.
"'I am confident that the plan submitted to (the judge) will address his concerns and allow the state to enforce the law of the land,' Schwarzenegger said Tuesday in a prepared statement."
"California's prison medical czar
expressed deep reservations Tuesday over recently enacted legislation to increase bed capacity in the state corrections agency and moved to expand his oversight authority to cover construction and its hiring operations," reports the Bee's Andy Furillo.
"
Robert Sillen, the federally appointed receiver in charge of correctional medical care, said in a report that a key component of the $7.9 billion prison construction and rehabilitation package signed into law May 3 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
'may well jeopardize prisoner patient health care.'"Sillen also said in the 44-page report to U.S. District Court Judge
Thelton Henderson that his ability to elevate prison medical care to constitutional standards is being impeded by an estimated 2,400 to 2,700 correctional officer vacancies. To fill them, he is asking Henderson to give state corrections officials 15 days to answer 'why the Receiver should not begin to provide direct oversight over the (prison system's) correctional officer recruitment and hiring programs.'"
"Moving to stem rising health care costs, a state pension board panel Tuesday
endorsed a broad cost-cutting plan that would boost co-payments for doctor visits for thousands of public employees and allow Blue Shield of California to exit rural El Dorado County and three other Northern California counties," writes Gilbert Chan in the Bee.
"The changes will shave more than $59 million off premiums that the California Public Employees' Retirement System will charge state and local government employers in 2008. The board plans to set next year's rate increases in June.
"CalPERS trustees, who oversee the nation's third largest purchaser of health care, will consider the panel's benefit recommendations today.
Reuters has the goods on
how the death of Anna nicole Smith changed Maria Shriver's life. "Shriver said on Tuesday that she was about to return to work in TV news earlier this year
but changed her mind after seeing the widespread tabloid-style coverage of the death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.
"The wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shriver has not hidden the fact that she was reluctant to give up her career at NBC News when he was first elected in 2003.
"
After giving up her job at the network in 2004 to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, Shriver said she had worked out a deal to return following the inauguration of her husband to a second term in January of this year.
"In a frank discussion on her life, motherhood and work, Shriver said she had a change of heart after serious news outlets provided sensational coverage about the February death of Smith.
"'
I kind of made up my mind I did not want to go back into the news division after watching the Anna Nicole Smith frenzy,' Shriver said. 'I was just flabbergasted by that. How it was across the board, all encompassing, and I just thought to myself, this is not where I want to work.'
"'I actually quit and I said, you know what, this ship has sailed, it's not for me.'
"Two imperiled humpbacks
surfaced Tuesday evening in muddy waters near the Port of Sacramento, so far upriver that federal wildlife officials launched frantic efforts to save the whales.
"'We need to start turning those animals around,' said
Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
"After saying earlier Tuesday that it might be wise to let the whales try to swim out on their own, Cordaro said it's too late for that.
"Fisheries service officials planned to fly into Sacramento today from their Southern California offices to oversee a rescue attempt.
"But a certain amount of annoyance might be needed to drive the creatures, which appear to be a mother and calf, to the ocean. When they were spotted Tuesday evening, they were just three miles south of the port in West Sacramento, near where Jefferson Boulevard begins paralleling the Deep Water Channel.
"That puts them 10 miles upriver from where they were last sighted Monday, and 70 miles from the Golden Gate, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer
Alex Saldana."
Yet another sign of the West Sacramento's renaissance...
