Passing of Budget Removes Governor's Veto Threat

The Governor promised that he would veto all bills (with a few exceptions, like high speed rail) unless he signed a budget first. With the Constitutional deadline of September 30th approaching for bills to be signed or vetoed, it looked like there would be a lot of vetoes.

Now that we have a budget we just have to see which specific bills get the red pen.

I found this LA times article that gave an overview of the 1000 bills that might have been vetoed.

We Got A Budget!

Californians can breathe a sigh of relief until next year. The budget is 81 days late. Unlike the budget passed earlier this week, this one will be signed by the governor. The lack of a budget caused the state not to pay contractors, vendors, schools and health care providers. That is a lot of float for may contractors on state projects.

According to the Sac Bee here are the changes between the budget that failed and the budget that passed.

• Tightened restrictions on using money from proposed rainy-day fund during down economic times.

• Eliminated proposal to increase withholding on personal income taxpayers by 10 percent. ($1.5 billion loss)

• Increased penalty from 10 percent to 20 percent for corporate taxpayers who underpay their liability by $1 million or more. ($1.5 billion gain)

• Eliminated tax amnesty program. ($400 million loss)

• Reduced budget reserve for 2008-09 from $1.2 billion to $800 million. ($400 million change)

Source: California Legislature

In addition some of the budget experts are predicting some big problems for next year's budget. The California Budget Project is seeing some big problems as the budget does not raise any new revenue.

They did an analysis of the budget that was to be vetoed and it lists the programs that would be affected. It appears as though the two budgets are pretty much the same with regards to spending priorities.

Budget Deal Gets Promise of Veto and Override

The California Legislature approved a budget that the governor has pledged to veto. It appears as though the veto will be overridden. With a two thirds majority to override a veto, which is the same number of votes needed to pass a budget an override will be easy. The budget bill will become law, when the legislature overrides the governor's veto.

According to the SF Gate.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised Tuesday he will veto a state budget that state lawmakers had approved hours earlier, saying the plan is flawed and would create an even worse fiscal crisis for California next year.

Senate President Perata and Assembly Speaker Bass say that the votes are there to override the veto.

Vendors and contractors, I do believe your check will be in the mail soon.

Governor Threatens to Veto Budget

The governor is threatening to veto the recent budget that is 77 days late.

The budget that "solves" the budget crisis, is going to over tax people by ten percent and give back the money at the end of the year anything overpaid.

Call it a no interest loan to the state.

But the governor is not going to veto it on those grounds. Governor Schwarzenegger is going to veto it because there are not enough checks and balances on the budget reserve.

Read more here.

Apprentice Wages Posted In a New Site

The Division of Apprenticeship Standards (DAS) is posting the prevailing wages on its website now. In the past the wages were posted on the Division of Labor Statistics and Research (DLSR) next to the prevailing wages for journeymen.

The wages can be found here.

This interface has each prevailing wage period listed in the drop down menu. Select from the first menu. The second drop down menu is a list of the counties.

When you select a county from the drop down menu, a list of the trades of that county will be listed below.

In the past the wages were just shown as a percentage of the journeyman's wages. This would ensure that at least an estimate of the wages were made available. This is not the case now.

Now one has to make a request for the wage. Since the prevailing wages are connected to the collectively bargained rate for the area, the rate is not "established" until the wage is posted until the DAS gets the rate either from the union or management organization.

Eleven Weeks Late, California Has a Budget

So no less than eleven weeks late California's legislature has agreed on a budget. The Assembly and Senate leaders has said that they have come to an agreement. To pass a budget in California a two-thirds majority is needed. Thus leaders from both parties need to agree on a budget unless, the party has more than twenty eight votes in the Senate and fifty four in the Assembly.

It is great for all of the residents, vendors, contractors and employees of the state in the short term. But it appears that there is little in the way of long term "reform". For example the next year's budget already has a two billion dollar deficit.

According the Sac Bee:

Legislative leaders said today they at last have a compromise deal on an 11-week-late state budget that calls for no tax increases, no borrowing from local governments or other state special funds -- and which makes no one happy.

Emerging from a weekend meeting in the office of Senate GOP leader Dave Cogdill, the quartet declined to give specific details of their compromise plan, saying they wanted to talk to their respective caucuses first.

But they said the plan closes the $15.2 billion gap in the $103.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 with $9 billion in spending cuts. The rest of the gap will be patched by closing tax loopholes and "accelerated revenue collections," an accounting term for collecting some one-time revenues in this fiscal year rather than the next. The leaders indicated that while balanced, the budget anticipates at least a $2 billion hole in next year's budget.