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Monday, June 15, 2015

Apparently, no deal

Today is D-Day under the state constitution for the legislature with regard to the budget and apparently there has been no pre-arranged deal with the governor.* The legislature is taking a more optimistic approach when it comes to projecting revenue for the next fiscal year than the governor prefers. The more optimistic approach allows for more spending and more going into reserves (and some extra money for UC - but with strings attached the university doesn't want). As we have previously noted, the governor could veto the whole package but that seems unlikely. Were he to do so, the legislature would be under no pressure to enact another budget before July 1 and there could be a period, as often occurred under Schwarzenegger, of no budget in place. The governor instead could use his line-item veto to remove spending he didn't like from what the legislature enacts - which seems more likely. To the extent that revenue exceeds spending, reserves would be that much larger at the end of the fiscal year. Finally, the governor and legislative leaders could come to a deal at some point after June 15 (but before July 1) that would override the budget being passed today.
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*See, for example http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20150614/california-lawmakers-to-vote-on-1175b-budget-without-gov-browns-sign-off and http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-state-budget-20150615-story.html

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