State Budget

After years of budget agony, California is seeing something strange this month: a heap of excess cash.

As many California lawmakers herald a budget proposal that appears to restore fiscal stability to the state, some court officials have a different message: It's not enough.

School districts across the state have laid off teachers, combined classes and all but abandoned the 20-student target.

The California Legislature acted unconstitutionally when it approved a bill moving Gov. Jerry Brown's initiative to raise taxes to the top of the November ballot, an appeals court ruled Friday.

In a scathing new review of the California Public Utilities Commission, the Department of Finance found widespread budget errors and inaccurate fiscal predictions of various fees that state consumers pay each month.

The state's top fiscal analyst generally embraced Gov. Jerry Brown's budget Monday, agreeing that the state's spending and revenues are "roughly in balance" and that the governor is right to focus on fiscal discipline for the foreseeable future.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who paid relatively little attention to the University of California for the first two years of his term, started showing up for board meetings late last year, urging spending reductions as part of a "new paradigm" in higher education.

Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan appears to provide sufficient funding to avoid tuition increases at the University of California next year, a UC administrator said Friday.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared Thursday that California's budget deficit has vanished thanks to new tax hikes and past spending cuts, marking the first time since the recession that state leaders haven't faced a deep fiscal chasm in January.

With state employee contract talks just weeks away, Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday rolled out a budget that included money for long-promised pay raises and little else – at least for next year.

Gov. Jerry Brown will give more than $2 billion extra to K-12 districts next school year and again ask lawmakers to direct more funding to impoverished students and English learners in his budget plan today, according to education sources familiar with the proposal.

Offering a brief glimpse of his new spending plan, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday he will propose a "live-within-our-means" budget on Thursday that spends more money on higher education and K-12 schools in the next fiscal year.

The agency that regulates California's alcohol sales through undercover stings at bars, restaurants and retailers has spent more than $70,000 outfitting its agents with gas masks and bulletproof helmets.

Gov. Jerry Brown and California lawmakers struck an upbeat tone in recent weeks as they enjoyed their most positive budget outlook since the economic downturn.

The state's fiscal analyst said Wednesday that California's long-tattered budget is on the verge of producing surpluses, but he cautioned that Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers must first avoid a spending spree.

Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers are looking at a new budget landscape after California voters last week approved a $6 billion annual tax infusion and apparently gave legislative Democrats supermajority power.

One of the darkest hours of California's budget dysfunction came in February 2009, when lawmakers slumbered on chairs and under desks in the Capitol as leaders attempted to break a stalemate through physical exhaustion.

Gov. Jerry Brown hoped a mix of politicking and good fortune would deter negative ads against his tax initiative in the campaign's final weeks.

California’s budget has been on shaky ground for years, even before the recent recession. Various commissions, blue-ribbon panels and reform organizations have proposed ways to ease the state’s budget woes by relaxing some restrictions and imposing others, but consensus has been elusive

California lawmakers approved a package of changes Friday aimed at cutting costs for public pensions, sending legislation to Gov. Jerry Brown despite objections from both organized labor and Republicans unhappy with its scope.

A public pension reform proposal favored by Gov. Jerry Brown would save struggling state and local governments between $40 billion and $60 billion over 30 years, according to a hasty analysis by CalPERS.

The state has axed 7,112 vehicles from its inventory since Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the reductions last year, according to the Department of General Services.

State workers call it "use it or lose it," a practice in which departments try to spend every last penny rather than save for the good of the overall California budget.

Democrats say voters need look no further than California's $91 billion general fund budget to see how dramatically they have cut. That spending total is 11 percent below the state's pre-recession peak.

Former state parks director Ruth Coleman knew the department was running a budget surplus of $20 million even as it was carrying out a plan to close 70 parks, according to testimony released by the state Natural Resources Agency late Friday.

Gov. Jerry Brown asked lawmakers Friday to spend $20 million in newfound parks money on repairs and a matching fund to solicit future donations rather than return money to donors who gave when they believed the system was broke.

California drivers pay fees for smog checks, vehicle registrations and new tires, all supposedly for programs that benefit roadway use.

The Maulino family is a great believer in AVID – a program that they say propelled Alexander Maulino, 20, from high school to college with dreams of becoming a physician.

California may never see "hundreds of millions" in Facebook-related tax dollars necessary to balance the state budget as investors spurn the social media giant, the state's top fiscal analyst warned Wednesday.

California's borrowing from special fund accounts has reached nearly $4.3 billion, more than five times the amount from June 2008, according to a semiannual report issued Monday by the state Department of Finance.

In 2004, California voters authorized $15 billion in bonds to erase a massive budget deficit at the urging of lawmakers and newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

California's ongoing state budget crisis has claimed another victim: student state workers. In a few weeks the state will ax hundreds of their jobs – just as the school year gets under way.

As California lawmakers slashed funding for social services and state workers this spring, some of the Legislature's top-paid staff saw the size of their own salaries grow.

After giving out hundreds of pay raises in the past year, the Senate announced plans for a crackdown Wednesday – a one-year pay freeze.

When California's largest public employee union announced Tuesday that its members accepted another year of furloughs, it was one more sign that government labor unions are moving to make concessions.

State Controller John Chiang will appeal a judge's ruling that he does not have authority to withhold lawmakers' pay in cases in which the Legislature passes a budget that Chiang finds is unbalanced.

Gov. Jerry Brown rejected the Legislature's first budget proposal in June because he said it was "not structurally balanced and puts us into a hole in succeeding years."

A Sacramento judge on Friday halted Gov. Jerry Brown's drive to place his tax initiative atop the November ballot as the court examines recent signature counting and a new law intended to give his measure a leg up.

Suction dredge mining foes are crowing following news that an addition to the California budget bill will effectively extend indefinitely a moratorium on the controversial practice.

University of California President Mark Yudof said Thursday that he will ask UC's governing board to freeze tuition for the coming school year, responding to the state budget just as Gov. Jerry Brown had hoped.

As Californians head out for summer vacation, state officials said Thursday that most of the 70 state parks once slated for closure will remain open after an outpouring of private support.

After Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would likely put his tax initiative atop the November ballot, a rival tax campaign filed suit Thursday to block his measure from taking first place.

Gov. Jerry Brown used his blue pencil to strike $128.9 million in spending from the $91.3 billion General Fund state budget he signed Wednesday, his office reported today.He vetoed another $66.8 million in special fund spending, for a total veto amount of 195.7 million.

Nearly all of the 70 California state parks originally slated for closure Sunday will remain open for now, despite a line-item veto of parks funding by Gov. Jerry Brown, state parks officials said today.

California state budgets rarely look better than on the day they are signed.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the main budget bill Wednesday as lawmakers sent him remaining legislation they say will close an estimated $15.7 billion gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Here's some of what they did:

Linda Iben never imagined herself a welfare mom. A longtime administrative assistant, she had worked her whole adult life. But when her position with a nonprofit group disappeared in January 2010, jobs were scarce. Iben, 52, decided to train to become a dental assistant and finished near the top of her class, she said. But when she started handing out her résumé, "I found that everyone was looking for someone with experience."

After wrangling with legislative Democrats earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new California budget late Wednesday that slashes courts and state workers while assuming voters will pass a multibillion-dollar tax hike in November.

In a move labor leaders hope will lead to higher wages for 423,000 in-home care workers, California would create a new state authority to negotiate future pay as part of the budget deal lawmakers are expected to send to Gov. Jerry Brown today.

California students will no longer be able to use state scholarships to pay tuition at most for-profit colleges under the final budget plan lawmakers are expected to send Gov. Jerry Brown today.