State Budget in California Sets Record for Tardiness

The legislature in my home state of California still has not reached an agreement on the state’s budget. As of yesterday the budget was 64 days late, which breaks the record for the longest our state has gone without a budget. Below is a snippet from an article on NYTimes.com about the ongoing budget problems, you can read the full text by clicking here.

“As lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continue to haggle over how to plug a $15 billion gap in the budget, health care clinics have reduced their staffs, community college students are being denied tuition grants, and art classes at one high school have moved to the lawn because the school district cannot afford new portable classrooms.

‘This is not a good time,’ David A. Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Association, said of the public school system, which has been denied $600 million during the stalemate.

The budget morass is a result in part of factors that have also hurt other states: high foreclosure rates, revenues that have trickled in below expectations and enormous fuel costs. Additional factors are particular to the way California does business, including voter initiatives that tie up various cash streams and the requirement that a tax increase be approved by two-thirds majorities in both legislative houses.”