A: Lawyers who have investigated the issue found no legal authority for a state to declare bankruptcy. Of course it could become functionally insolvent, but formal bankruptcy is another issue. The state constitution dictates order of payment of state revenues and bondholders are high in pecking order, so if the state could not finance all of its activities, general obligation bondholders would still be fairly well protected. Holders of revenue anticiption notes and other, lesser forms of debt are not as protected.

A: Gerrymandered legislative districts and term limits make it nearly impossible to oust an incumbent legislator, or even change a district's party representation when a legislative seat falls vacant.

A: Total state payroll costs are about $24 billion a year but over half of that goes to workers in special fund agencies such as Caltrans or the two university systems. Excluding them, the general fund spends about $11 billion a year for personnel costs - salaries, fringe benefits, retirement, etc. That's very roughly 12 percent of the non-university general fund spending, although the numbers change almost daily, and the biggest single bloc of that general fund personnel expense is the prison system, which has close to 50,000 workers.

A: By all accounts, a relatively tiny portion of the budget pertains to illegal immigrants - imprisonment and health care, primarily - and research conducted by the Wilson administration in early 1990s basically concluded that those costs are fairly well offset by taxes paid by illegal immigrants.

A: The state's unfunded liability for retiree health costs is estimated at $48 billion, plus another $13 billion for judicial and University of California employees. The state is paying $1.36 billion a year for retiree health care now but has been told by the state auditor's office that it should be committing nearly $4 billion so that it could begin paying down the liability.

The new accounting standards require state and local governments to account for the unfunded health care, but they are not required to set aside money to cover it. Some local governments in California have done so, but the state, facing severe and worsening budget deficits, has not done so. The Legislature has blocked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to overhaul retiree health care and produce enough savings, he says, to whittle away at the unfunded liability.

A: Only three propositions, 1C, 1D and 1E, have any direct and immediate effect on the state's budget. Their defeat would remove about $6 billion from the 2009-10 budget, but a deteriorating economy could make the total shortfall three times as big. The governor has said that the state may be forced to "borrow" several billion dollars from local government treasuries, as allowed by the state constitution, so Sacramento County would feel some effect from that. State cutbacks in health and welfare programs, which are operated by county governments, would also have an effect on the county's budget.

A: The bill requires a two-thirds vote in each house because it is an "urgency" measure, meaning it would take effect immediately upon passage and signing by the governor. Non-urgency bills require only a majority, but they cannot take effect until Jan. 1, 2010. Union contract bills are nearly always urgency measures.

A: California and other states, unlike cities and counties, cannot declare bankruptcy. The state constitution places education and bond service at the head of the list so to change it, the constitution would have to be changed.

A: Except for prisons and payments to local governments to offset losses of revenue from the vehicle license fee, state spending has roughly tracked inflation and population growth over the last decade. And police and fire do consume over half of spending in many cities. It's what drove Vallejo into bankruptcy.

A: The constitution does establish minimum levels of school finance, which is the largest single component of the state general fund budget. But school funding can be reduced under some circumstances. As you imply, higher education and prisons are two of the larger segments, along with health and welfare services. All could feel the pinch if the state's budget woes continue.

A: Cutting prison costs by any major amount would involve releasing a substantial number of the 170,000 inmates, which is theoretically possible but faces an uphill political path.

A: Proposition 57 was a $15 billion state bond issue to refinance the state's short-term loans while Proposition 58 was a spending limit Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said would prevent future deficits. But he now says the latter is not strong enough and wants to tighten it up with Proposition 1A. Detractors say it's still too weak to keep the state from seeing deficits.

A: Some reductions in In-Home Supportive Services are part of the budget deal approved in February, but unions and other supporters of IHSS are pushing back.

A: That would be impossible to predict. The immediate fiscal effect of rejection would be to deprive the 2009-10 budget of about $6 billion of revenue, most of it to be borrowed against the state lottery. Rejection therefore would make closing the projected 2009-10 deficit that much harder but how the governor and Legislature would react is unknown even to them. It could result in layoffs of state workers, or not, depending on what approach they took.

A: Prop. 1F would have very little impact on the budget itself, if any, so there's really no upside, other than expressing anger, or downside.