Governor Brown Releases $122.6 Billion Budget Proposal

To run the state government, the governor Thursday proposed a general fund budget of $122.6 billion, roughly $7 billion more than in the current fiscal year.

The budget proposal provides $380 million for the second year of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps the state’s poorest working families, as well the first cost-of-living increases since 2006 for aged, blind and disabled Californians in the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplemental Payment program. The Cal State system would get $152 million more, an increase of 4.6 percent.

The Department of Developmental Services expects to serve about 300,000 individuals by the end of the next fiscal year.

A big headline in California is the fact that a Liberal Governor, Jerry Brown, is again proposing what some in his own party are calling a Conservative State Budget. State and local spending on schools, $47.3 billion when Brown returned to the governorship in 2011, is expected to top $71 billion next year.

Republicans cautioned against expanding social welfare programs that will require long-term funding.

Assembly Minority Leader Chad Mayes, of Yucca Valley, says Democrats should listen to the independent legislative analyst and the Democratic governor, who have both warned about overspending during boom times.

On Thursday, the Democratic governor will spell out how he thinks the money should be spent.

He proposed $122.6 billion in spending from the state’s general fund on Thursday that would send billions more to schools, health care and infrastructure.

California Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, called Brown’s budget proposal a “clear-eyed focus in maintaining California’s fiscal stability”.

Tim Hornbecker, director of business development for The Arc of Alameda County, believes tying developmental disabilities funding to the MCO tax is the governor’s way of garnering Republican support for the tax – he needs a two-thirds vote from the Legislature for the tax to pass.

Providing $36 billion, over the next 10 years, to improving highway and road maintenance, expansion of public transit, and improving critical trade routes.

“The world is expensive, and drought and climate change are part of the future”, Brown said, “so I wouldn’t be surprised if those costs continue to rise”. The request assumed a tuition revenue increase of $55.9 million from 3 percent enrollment growth, or about 12,600 additional students.

“Schools are making great progress with the extra resources from Proposition 98 and Proposition 30, which voters approved three years ago”.

In his written budget proposal summary, Brown said recent reports submitted by the Long Beach-based Chancellor’s Office show that fewer than one in five students who enter CSU as freshmen graduate within four years.

Some insurance industry and taxpayer advocates said the proposal sounded like a fair way to preserve Medi-Cal spending while ensuring that premiums for privately ensured consumers would not rise from a tax hike.

The recession-era cuts left a $1.1 billion hole in the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, which won’t be restored by the budget proposal, even as the Golden State has built a surplus.