Gov. Jerry Brown’s new budget, approved yesterday, assumes that the state can bring in $4 billion in new revenues, with two possible contingency plans if these revenues amount to less. Since no agreement was reached with Republicans on a special election to extend existing tax hikes, the state is looking at extensive deferments in education funding that will affect K-12, community colleges and the UC and CSU systems. The extra revenue is projected to come in from the enforcement of a sales tax on online vendors and a $12 car registration fee. Most controversial, however, is the decision to take $1.7 billion from redevelopment agencies statewide. This effectively ends the role that redevelopment agencies have traditionally played in improving services for local communities.
The decision will have far-reaching local consequences. UCSC, for example, will suffer from an additional $150 million in cuts and be forced to jack up tuition. UC Spokesman Steve Montiel said that, “Cuts of this magnitude inevitably will drive up tuition for public university students and their families.” Some students are taking this a step further, saying that this is taxation, not tuition and arguing that a tuition increase is really a tax on students.
Meanwhile, the Merc points out that the brunt of the cutswill affect the university’s lowest paid workers, including custodians and cooks, maintenance workers and bus drivers. Many of them, the paper points out, must already hold a second job just to make ends meet. Jim Dunne, who oversees campus maintenance and custodial work, says that he has already faced a 26 percent budget cut and lost about 50 workers since 2008.
The cuts evoked a sharp response from Mark Yudof, President of the UC system. “We cannot stand silent,” he said. “While we recognize the enormity of the fiscal challenge facing the state, we continue to oppose further cuts, and support any efforts that will restore long-term stability to state funding of higher education.”
The budget could also affect the K-12 school year, and cause students to lose about a week of learning. Additional teacher layoffs and a suspension of extracurricular activities are also likely.
At the same time, California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye warns that the cuts would also affect the legal system. There will inevitably be court closures and forced leaves and layoffs for court employees. An overcrowded prison system will also be subject to severe cuts, with Gov. Brown forced to use existing sources of revenue to fund his program to “realign” state prisons and reduce their population by tens of thousands of inmates, in accordance with a ruling by three federal judges.
While Brown calls the budget “a huge step forward,” Senate President Darryl Steinberg said that it is “the most austere fiscal blueprint California has seen in a generation.” And yet it may become even more austere in the coming months. The budget is predicated on the assumption that the state can raise $4 billion in revenues. If those revenues fail to materialize, additional austerity measures will be triggered.
With all these cuts it seems unlikely that anything can be done to rescue the existing redevelopment funds from seizure by the state. Nevertheless, county officials met on Wednesday to see if there was anything that they could do to save at least $75 million in funds. The meeting had the appearance of a desperate race to the finish line, pitting local officials against the governor as they attempted to strike deals with third parties before Brown signed the budget.
The original plan was to sign a deal with the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County to oversee three projects in Soquel: a park along Soquel Creek, new sidewalks near Soquel High School and improvements to Twin Lakes State Beach. But the Community Foundation withdrew on Monday night, leaving officials scrambling to find a group to replace them.
They eventually found Vanir Construction Management, a group involved in the repair of the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz. The problem was that approval of the new deal had to be placed on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda at the very last minute, which requires a four out of five vote. The Supervisors managed to pull this off, and the switch was approved within moments of the state legislature voting on the budget.
RDAs throughout California were faced with the same challenge. Some succeeded while others failed, leaving in question how this will affect the “triggers” scheduled to go into effect at the start of 2012. Read more at SF Gate, Inside Higher Education, the Mercury News, All Headline News, KALW and the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
