Newly released Assembly records provide no smoking gun for Assemblyman Anthony Portantino's accusation that his office funds were slashed last summer as punishment for casting the lone Democratic vote against the state budget.

The records tell a more complicated story in Portantino's spat with Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez: Action was taken against Portantino just 10 days after his budget vote – but he had been warned of a shortfall and told to cure it months before that.

Each side blames the other for a July crackdown in which the Rules Committee threatened to furlough Portantino's entire staff for six weeks, a threat later rescinded.

Pérez accused Portantino of overspending, while the latter counters that Pérez orchestrated a deficit and then held it over his head in a failed attempt to keep him in line.

The Portantino records, among thousands of Assembly documents that a judge recently deemed public records, show that Portantino's fiscal problems began in early 2011 when Pérez stripped him of his chairmanship of the Revenue and Taxation Committee.

Portantino's office funds dropped by more than $70,000 when he lost the post. Contributing to the problem was his hiring of a $35,000-a-year field representative in November 2010, about a month before he learned of his cut.

Though Portantino was left with less money to run his office – about $468,000 last year – he continued to have about a dozen aides, so ledgers quickly projected red ink.

Portantino, D–La Cañada Flintridge, received warning letters in January and April, but Pérez temporarily cured the problem by approving a $50,000 subsidy and transferring one aide to his own staff.

Pérez's help ground to a halt in July, a little more than a week after the budget vote. Portantino received the crackdown letter projecting a $67,179 deficit by year's end, ordering immediate cuts, and threatening to furlough his staff.

Continuing to bail Portantino out would be unfair to other members, Pérez contended.

Portantino cried foul. He accused Pérez of punishing him, noting that the April warning came shortly after he bucked Pérez on prison realignment and that the July crackdown came shortly after he voted against the Democratic-crafted budget.

The fiscal slap was consistent with a private warning Pérez had given him months before, in December 2010, that he would face consequences if he didn't toe the party line on key votes, Portantino said.

"They told me in no uncertain terms that if I didn't behave myself that they were going to cut my budget," he said.

That's exactly what happened, Portantino said: Pérez had created a hammer by cutting his budget on paper but informally approving his prior-year spending for six months – until the budget vote.

Pérez denied retribution in an October letter to Portantino that said there was no intent to embarrass him. He said that Portantino had failed to cure his shortfall and that "your expenditure problems are not connected to any votes you have cast."

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