This really pisses me off. California is on the brink of financial collapse and yet those clowns in Sacramento continue to bicker over the state budget. Meanwhile, people are losing their jobs or being forced to take days off w/o pay! Asshole politicians!!!! Recall them all!
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California Begins Issuing IOUs
2/3/09
As a budget stalemate continues, California has been forced to begin issuing IOUs, as the state runs dangerously low on cash.
State legislators failed to meet an end of January deadline on an agreement to make up for California's $40 billion budget gap. California's budget requires a 2/3 majority to pass, and the Republican members have vowed to vote for nothing that includes a tax increase.
At the same time bills go unpaid, with partisan politics taking the blame. What the GOP fails to forget, is that you cannot cut everything and have the state budget be nothing. They have cut schools (already California is among the bottom in school spending) and other valuable services, yet refuse a tax increase.
Part of the IOUs: state tax refunds.
"People are going to be hurt starting today," said Garin Casaleggio, a spokesman for Controller John Chiang.
If there is no deal by Friday, state government workers will be forced to take their first work furlough day. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered state employees to take two days off a month without pay through June 2010.
Frankly, the alternative, according to Schwarzenegger, is layoffs. Despite that, state employee unions originally sued, but a judge ruled the governor has the ability to order the furloughs.
A lack of common sense showing? I have said previously that it would be better to reduce salaries by 20% than to layoff 20% of a company's (or state's) employees.
State lawmakers were continuing budget negotiations on Monday night.
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Schwarzenegger: Layoffs coming if no budget by Friday
By JULIET WILLIAMS Associated Press Writer
02/10/2009 10:00:16 AM PST
SACRAMENTO—Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration warned Tuesday that it will begin proceedings to lay off thousands of state workers if the governor and legislative leaders do not reach a budget deal by Friday.
Notices would go to employees with the least seniority in the state's corrections and health and human services departments, as well as in other agencies that receive money from the state's general fund, said Schwarzenegger's communications director, Matt David.
The move is part of the governor's order to cut 10 percent from the government payroll as California faces a $42 billion deficit through June 2010.
"This is simply a matter of needing to realize savings and running out of time to do that," David said.
The governor's proposal to balance the budget through a mix of spending cuts and tax increases assumed the fix would be enacted by Feb. 1, but he has been unable to reach a compromise with lawmakers after weeks of meetings.
"We're losing savings the longer we go into February," David said. "We're at the point where time's up."
Administration officials are seeking to eliminate up to 10,000 jobs.
Because of seniority and so-called bumping rights, however, they will need to send about 20,000 layoff notices.
They project $150 million in savings through the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
Under labor agreements, the procedure to lay off a large number of state workers takes about six months, said Lynelle Jolley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Personnel Administration, which oversees employee pay and benefits.
She said employees first receive a type of pre-layoff warning that gives them 120 days' notice.
"It gives the employee the opportunity to shop for other state jobs that they will be given preference for, compared to a non-state employee or even another state employee," Jolley said.
Employees who receive a notice will have a chance to transfer to other branches of state government that are not paid through the general fund.
The possibility of layoffs comes days after some 200,000 state workers were forced to take last Friday off without pay, as part of twice-a-month furloughs Schwarzenegger ordered to save money. The furloughs amount to a 9.2 percent pay cut for affected employees.
Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which represents most prison guards, said mass layoffs would hurt the state economically without solving California's budget woes.
"Wholesale layoffs is a drop in the bucket with respect to the state's overall fiscal problem," Corcoran said. "Even with a 10 percent reduction in pay, state employees are only one 40th of the problem."
California has issued mass layoff notices because of precarious financial conditions before.
In summer 2003, then-Gov. Gray Davis issued about 16,000 surplus notices, or pre-layoff notices, Jolley said.
In the end, lawmakers agreed to cut 9,300 state government positions when they finally reached a budget accord. Most were vacant at the time, so about 1,200 people lost their jobs or were demoted, she said.
Schwarzenegger and lawmakers are approaching the 100th day since the governor called the special session to deal with the state's fiscal crisis.
Republican legislators remain opposed to tax increases, while Democrats are trying to preserve as much education and social service funding as possible.
Uriel
Times are tough, even here. At first we didn't notice the recession, because New Mexico has always been impoverished, and nothing was too different, but now even we are feeling it! My roommate has been working either shitty jobs for low pay or has been unemployed with no pay for the last year or two -- no fun.
Patrix
I now believe that the real influence of the subprime crisis is going to last for at least 5-10 years, or perhaps more than 10 years. We still don't know whether the financial part of the crisis is over or not--if there's to be a third wave (the first two being marked by the downfall of Bear Stearns and Lehman brothers respectively), a great number of small and medium-sized commercial banks will go bankrupt, and, according to past experiences--the Great Depression, for instance--this phase is hardly avoidable.
After all these first aids to stop the financial system from hemorrhage, economic problems will loom large, the most prominent of which will probably be stagflation. To dilute its huge debts, the federal government will generate more money supply and let US dollar depreciate. This will lead to (once again) excessive liquidity and inflation, both within and without the US, but they have to stand it for a couple of years, because it's to the best interest of the country.
And then, after deciding that they have fed the economy with enough chicken soup and that its health condition is sound enough to endure a round of interest rate increase, Bernanke will follow Paul Volker's suit by raising federal funds rate significantly, to cure the economy from the fever of inflation. But that is too hard to handle well--Volker's measures did put an end to inflation, but they also resulted in the economic deflation in the 1980s. Only after that deflation is conquered shall we call the crisis history.
However, to an individual, the greater the crisis, the easier to make windfall profits. If you have sold commodities futures short in the past few months, now you should have tons of money.
Uriel
I think at this point, even a modest recovery will be welcome -- boom times can come later. It just amazes me that all these masters of the universe were so lousy at math! And that the whole thing went international so quickly.
Elaine, i heard on the news this morning that the pink slips are about to be handed out in California -- nail-biting time!
One of the ladies at work and I were discussing options like everyone taking a pay cut to keep coworkers from being laid off. We decided that we would both be willing to make that sacrifice to keep some people from getting the ax. Not that it's coming (as far as we know) -- we were just kind of exploring the idea, because it had happened to her daughter already. A 20% pay cut would be at least $3/hr for me, but I think it would be perfectly possible to tighten the belt and still stay afloat. NM's cheap to live in. And while there are some people who are ending up in dire straits because of this, I think for many people it's more a matter of downgrading their lifestyle than really altering it drastically. So I remain cautiously optimistic.
Elaine
Uriel wrote:
Elaine, i heard on the news this morning that the pink slips are about to be handed out in California -- nail-biting time!
Yes. While our wonderful state representatives in Sacramento continue to bicker over the budget, state workers will be laid off, and more and more county and city workers will be forced to go on work furlough.
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A 20% pay cut would be at least $3/hr for me, but I think it would be perfectly possible to tighten the belt and still stay afloat. NM's cheap to live in. And while there are some people who are ending up in dire straits because of this, I think for many people it's more a matter of downgrading their lifestyle than really altering it drastically. So I remain cautiously optimistic.
In a state like California, esp. in the big cities of LA, SF, and San Diego, the cost of living remains high, and the cost of utilities and services continues to rise, so taking a pay cut would be an extreme financial hardship for many families. And if the proposed state budget were to pass as is, with $14.4 billion in proposed tax hikes, that's going to ruin us all and will probably send us all packing for cheaper states. I'm not against paying higher taxes if it's absolutely necessary, but not if I'm expected to take a cut in pay as well.
Elaine
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And the saga continues...
California budget negotiations hit a new snag
Senate Republicans oust their leader, who had joined with Democrats to forge a budget package containing higher taxes.
By Eric Bailey and Patrick McGreevy
February 18, 2009
Reporting from Sacramento — As California's government continued its grinding downshift toward insolvency, efforts to close the state's nearly $42-billion budget gap hit a new snag late Tuesday as Republicans in the state Senate ousted their leader.
Around 11 p.m., a group of GOP senators, unhappy with the higher taxes that Senate leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto agreed to as part of a deal with the governor and Democrats, voted to replace him in a private caucus meeting in Cogdill's office.
They chose Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, a staunchly antitax lawmaker from Murrieta, as their new leader.
Cogdill's ouster could be a major setback to budget negotiations. Cogdill was a lead negotiator on the budget package and had committed to voting for it. Hollingsworth will likely try to renegotiate the deal, which lawmakers spent three months forging.
"It's a shame it ended this way," Cogdill said to reporters. "This budget needs to get out, and we need to put people to work again in this state."
Hollingsworth said he does not want to see a tax increase passed, but he offered no plan for resolving the budget crisis.
"All of that will be determined in the next couple of days," he said.
Soon after the leadership change, lawmakers returned to the Senate chamber, where they voted down the $14.4 billion in proposed tax hikes that are part of the budget package. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders have been trying to get the package approved since Saturday.
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer Thomas Watkins, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 24, 6:35 am ET
LOS ANGELES – The head of the nation's largest sheriff's department is warning that nearly 4,000 jail inmates might be released early and about 600 deputy and professional positions could be eliminated to meet budget cuts.
Owing to the economic crisis, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department faces a $71 million cut to its $2.5 billion budget in the coming fiscal year.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca told The Associated Press on Monday it looks as if he'll have to close two jails and eliminate the positions of the staff at those facilities.
"There's no way around me cutting $71 million out of the budget that won't affect having to close a jail or two," Baca said. "I have to start cutting."
Baca hasn't finalized plans, but said he was looking at closing two of the county's 10 jail facilities: the old central jail, which houses about 2,300 inmates; and part of another facility in Castaic in the north of the county that houses about 1,500 inmates. Violent offenders from the closed jails would be housed in other facilities.
Closing those facilities would eliminate positions for about 400 of the department's 10,000 deputies and another 200 or so civilian jobs would be lost too. The job cuts would come primarily through a hiring freeze.
Of the inmates that would be released early, Baca said he'd first look to nonviolent offenders who are awaiting trial.
Baca was forced to take similar action during an unforeseen downturn from 2002-05, when his department grappled with $180 million in cuts.
The department provides law enforcement for 40 cities, dozens of unincorporated communities and 4 million residents. The department also runs the county's jail system, which has a population capped at 20,000 and includes 700 people accused of murder awaiting trial.
Moving to New Mexico is beginning to look like a good idea...
Elaine
"California is a state in crisis. Negotiations to resolve its $26.3 billion budget deficit are weeks behind deadline, more than $470 million worth of IOUs are clogging government ledgers and its state bonds are trading at near junk status. It's been a long, slow tumble from the Golden State's glamorous peak in the 1960s--when Governor Pat Brown built an efficient network of freeways and thriving, affordable public universities--to today's insolvent government beset by an unwieldy constitution and decades of mistakes."
You know, this closing jails and releasing nonviolent offenders back into the wild seems to be perfectly timed with recent debates about decriminalizing some illegal drugs, like marijuana. i wonder if, after all this time, such a move would come not from a philosophical paradigm shift, but from cold hard economic pressure!Stranger things have happened. i don't buy the argument that growing weed as a cash crop would suddenly magically counteract the hard times with its agricultural revenue, but I do see where we spend an awful lot of money investigating, prosecuting, and incarcerating perpetrators of a fairly victimless crime.
And you remember all the flak Clinton got for passing a joint but not inhaling (Inhale To The Chief bumper stickers come to mind) ... while now Barack Obama cheerfully admits to not only smokin' the green ("Of course I inhaled -- I thought that was the point.") but snorting coke as well ... and no one bats an eye. The times they are a-changin' indeed.
bickerstonehall
Stange to read the ongoing saga from the US and California.
The crisis is worldwide and has caused a lot of bad feeling worldwide towards the US. Many ordinary woking people all over the world see the world crisis as a direct result of the carefree financial system in the US where money is more important than people and the banks were allowed to hide, cheat and lie about the financial situation which with US investment in other coutries has caused many companies all over the world to suffer.
I remember reading some time ago that California, if a country, not a state of the US, would be one of the ten richest countries in the world. What went wrong?
I have a couple of properties in New York State as a little investment. With prices now as low as $20,000 for a house I may add to that, but it is a long term investment.
One thing for sure. Those with money may complain as loudly as others about the present financial situation, but it is those with the least that will suffer the most and the US system is one of the least prepared in the world to help those who not have the means to pay. Food, Medical and Child Care come to mind.
I am English and while the world situation has hit there too, at least there will never be a question that anyone can not receive health care.
In Ukraine where I working, the Dollar was so respected as a safe place to put money.
One Ukrainian recently told me that now he understands two things come from the US. Mickey Mouse and the Dollar. He now believes Mickey Mouse to be more relaible
Recall them all!
