STATE BUDGET
ALL WEEK: The joint legislative Budget Conference Committee, charged with figuring out how to plug the estimated $24.3 billion hole in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, has a busy week ahead. Members are scheduled to hear public comment today on education, higher education, child care and development. The committee is meeting all week, but Tuesday is the last day for public comment. Also on Tuesday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to address lawmakers at a joint session, after which he and legislative leaders are expected to begin hammering out a revised plan.
GOVERNOR'S APPOINTEES
WEDNESDAY: Two Republican appointees to the state Board of Parole Hearings come up Wednesday before the Senate Rules Committee for confirmation hearings: Jack Garner, a former bureau chief for the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, and Michael Prizmich, who retired from the Amador County Sheriff's Department in 2006. Garner has served on the board since 2005, Prizmich since 2006. Their current terms would end in 2011. According to the news release announcing their current appointments last July, each earns $111,845 a year.
BILL DEADLINE
FRIDAY: Prepare for an avalanche of floor votes: Friday is the deadline for both the Assembly and the Senate to pass their own bills and send them to the other house. Last week, the Assembly and the Senate appropriations committees rejected hundreds of measures that would have cost the state nearly $213.5 billion a year. What they approved would cost the state's general fund a relatively frugal $9.3 million a year, but only if all those bills ultimately become law. Measures up for a vote include legislation that would impose tighter spay and neuter restrictions on pet owners, add motorcycles built since 2000 to the state's smog-check program and require maternity coverage in health insurance.
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