Adding up the state budget

The California Department of Finance has now posted summary information on the state budget that was passed last month. As we often point out on this blog, although you may hear the governor and other officials talk about the budget as "balanced," that is not what most folks in ordinary conversation understand as balanced.

There are various reserve funds associated with the state's General Fund. If the total of these reserves is declining, the decline is a mirror of a deficit, i.e., more is going out than is coming in. And that is what happened last fiscal year and what is projected for the current fiscal year 2025-26.

The table below shows the basic figures: 

Source: https://ebudget.ca.gov/2025-26/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/SummaryCharts.pdf. Figures for surpluses/deficits for the Public School, Safety Net, and BSA (budget stabilization account) for 2024-25 were derived from budget figures for 2023-24 as they appeared in the governor's January 2025 budget proposal.

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For UC, the general fund allocation is about $4.9 billion for 2025-26, more or less flat from the prior year. There are small additional allocations for special purpose funds outside the general fund.