As California's longest budget stalemate in state history ground to a close, six professional mediators met with The Bee's Capitol Bureau last week to offer their thoughts on building a more functional state budget process.

Their advice in a nutshell: Improve lawmakers' communication skills, train them and their aides in mediation techniques, set up a structured negotiation process long before budget deadlines approach, agree on common goals, build trust by reaching incremental agreements – and don't expect perfection.

– Amy Chance, Bee Political Editor

How would you characterize what went on last week in the negotiations?

Ellen Taylor: Probably the mediators in the room would agree that if a mediation-type process was brought to the negotiations, they might be able to work in a different manner than they're currently working.

Daniel Yamshon: For mediation to work, however, it does require the parties to be motivated to come to an agreement. There are times when people have a greater interest in maintaining the conflict or maintaining the dispute. In the political arena that can be for various reasons – posturing for the folks back home to make a political point.

We've seen people going through divorces constantly going to court because that's the only way they know how to maintain that particular relationship. … Sometimes the dispute has to get to the point where it's ripe for resolution.

The parties came into this negotiation with bottom lines which they cannot cross. And they're not in any risk of losing their seats for failure to act because of gerrymandered districts. How do you approach a mediation under those kinds of circumstances?

Taylor: Communication has to be increased between … all the parties concerned. And they have to start communicating with each other not in June, not when they're up against the wall and the budget has to be passed.

They have to start communicating in January.

Sharif Ebrahim: In the negotiations I'm involved in, they take place often over a period of years. And there are structured monthly or weekly meetings.

(In the budget process) it strikes me that there's not a whole lot of time for face-to-face substantive discussions.

The issue of coming in with fixed positions happens in most negotiations.

If there's that time built into the process, the parties can figure out a way to help each other save face.

When the downed spy plane in China negotiations took place (in 2001), that seemed to be all about how you issue an apology in Chinese but not one in English.

There is infinite creativity that can be applied to figuring out how you resolve issues in ways that allow parties to preserve their positions.

Yamshon: A lot of times you notice with very complex negotiations – whether they're the United Auto Workers with one of the major manufacturers or international arms control talks or NATO talks – you see the leaders signing the final agreements, but that's not really where negotiations take place. They took place long before (for example) with the foreign ministries in the State Department hammering out agendas: What are we going to talk about? When are we going to talk about it? What information are we going to produce, when can it be produced?

There are very small procedural agreements, which allows them to do two things. It monitors the good faith of the other negotiators: Are they showing up to the meetings, are they producing the information? The other thing it does is it allows the parties to build a history of being able to successfully negotiate, even though they're not actually talking about anything substantive at all. You get people to understand, "Well, I can at least trust them to show up on time. By gosh, they did produce the documents they said they would."

Alma Robinson: There's also a really important element that's been missing in our state conversations, and that is, what is the future that we all want?

What do we all share, what are our goals? … What are the things that we can agree on regardless of party or position? Then that puts a whole framework on the things you have to do from year to year.