Not Too Illuminating

More light is needed.

Yesterday, we noted that the legislature - particularly the state senate - has its own budget proposal and is not simply adopting the governor's May Revise plan.* In past years, the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) has lined up budget proposals from the governor, assembly, and senate side by side in a simple table in its publications.

Unfortunately, this time LAO's available public analysis of the senate plan is disjointed and does not align clearly with its own prior analysis of the May Revise. Descriptively, LAO characterizes the senate's plan as similar to the governors IF the federal government comes through with more support, but dissimilar if federal money doesn't arrive. In general, it seems to rely on more drawing down of state reserves absent federal support. It also seems to rely on changes to a particular tax which - if the federal government accepts what the state does - draws in more federal funding for Medi-Cal (the state name for Medicaid). In the past, federal approval has not always been forthcoming.

What may be going on in the assembly has yet to be analyzed. And exactly what is implied for UC in the senate version is not discussed, although the LA Times - as we noted yesterday - suggested that the senate has more funding for UC than the governor's proposal.

The available LAO analysis of the state senate plan is at:
https://lao.ca.gov/handouts/FO/2020/Overview-of-the-Senate-2020-21-Budget-Package-052820.pdf
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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2020/05/shock-but-not-awe.html
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UPDATE: The Sacramento Bee's report on the senate plan contains this tidbit:

(The plan) "reduces by half Newsom’s $800 million total blow in funding for the University of California and the California State University."

Source: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article243063166.html