By Kevin Yamamura
kyamamura@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Jun. 15, 2012 – 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Friday, Jun. 15, 2012 – 7:26 am
The main budget bill coming before California lawmakers today is a 777-page piece of legislation that spells out how the state will spend billions of dollars over the next fiscal year.
A Senate panel raced to consider the measure Thursday, along with a handful of related bills that arrived in committee fresh off the printer.
Passing the annual budget requires two dozen or more bills, the entire contents of which are virtually impossible for any one person to read in the days – and sometimes minutes – leading up to the floor vote.
The process inevitably comes down to the wire, a function of deadline procrastination and a desire to keep lobbyists in the dark after deals are struck behind closed doors, for fear they would generate enough opposition to unravel a compromise.
Those outside the Capitol criticize legislative leaders annually for a lack of sunshine.
“I think the bills should be in print for three days,” said Bob Stern, a veteran government watchdog who helped craft the state’s Political Reform Act. “I think three days would give everybody some chance to look at what’s in these bills, particularly the budget bill, which is the most important one of the year. But it’s usually provided at the last minute.”
In last year’s late-night budget vote, lawmakers approved a 73-page bill on education finance less than an hour after it reached the Senate floor. Assembly Bill 114 contained the guts of a compromise struck by Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic leaders and the powerful California Teachers Association to prevent midyear teacher layoffs and curtail the powers of school district administrators.
Democratic leaders needed the union’s support to reduce school funding, and districts might have killed the bill, given enough time.
On Thursday, the Senate budget committee considered less than half of the 24 bills necessary to carry out a balanced budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. None was available online the previous evening.
Besides the main budget bill, which specifies the amounts spent on programs, lawmakers must pass other bills covering subjects from public safety to education that detail the steps necessary to save money or raise revenue.
Under Proposition 25, which voters passed in 2010 to force the Legislature to deliver on-time budgets, lawmakers say they must pass only the main budget bill by midnight tonight to avoid losing their pay and expense money. Democratic leaders plan to take up the main bill today and vote on most subject-oriented bills next week.
State Controller John Chiang withheld lawmakers’ pay a year ago in part because he said they needed to pass the full slate of budget bills to meet their responsibility. But Chiang was disarmed by an April court decision that said he has no authority to judge the Legislature’s budget.
Lawmakers themselves have the power to say whether a budget is balanced. They have essentially done so this year with a provision in the main budget bill declaring revenue at $94.4 billion, which assumes state voters will pass a November ballot initiative raising taxes on sales and upper-income earners.
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When are cities, countries, and the state going to learn that until you take away the $100,000+ pensions of most 30 year veterans in police, fire, DWP, and correctional officers, we aren’t going to solve this financial crisis. We love these people, we simply can’t afford them.