MSNBC/KHTS – California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday asked state employees to work a four-day, 38-hour week as part of a package of massive spending cuts needed to help the state close an unexpected $15.7 billion budget deficit.
In addition to the unusual four-day workweek — part of a mandated reduction in salaries and benefits to state workers of 5 percent — Brown’s proposed budget, which would take effect July 1, also would slash $1.2 billion from the state’s Medi-Cal program and more than $2 billion from education.
Brown also urged voters to pass an initiative to raise taxes that he is supporting on the November ballot.
“I am a buoyant optimist,” Brown said at a news conference, “but this is the best I can do” about the deficit, which is about $7 billion greater than Brown predicted when he proposed his initial budget in January.
He blamed tax collections that hadn’t come in as high as had been expected and billions of dollars in state cuts that have been blocked by lawsuits and federal requirements.
“The budget has lots of funds … and restraints and rules,” Brown said. “It’s a pretzel palace of incredible complexity, and that’s why it isn’t straightforward how you balance the budget.”
The tax plan Brown is pushing in November would raise the state sales tax to 7.5 percent from 7.25 percent, which is projected to increase sales tax receipts by about 3.5 percent.
The plan would also raise the income tax on residents earning between $250,000 and $300,000 a year to 10.3 percent from 9.71 percent and to 11.3 percent on people with annual incomes between $350,000 and $500,000 — a 17.7 percent increase over the current rate.
Brown said that if voters don’t approve the new taxes in November, cuts to social services, state workers’ pay and other spending would be larger.
Under that scenario, he said, cuts to education would total $6 billion, and services for people with developmental disabilities would be reduced by $50 million.
Los Angeles County Administrators are concerned that the governor’s proposals will have a serious impact on services already being shouldered by overburdened county agencies.
The Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office is analyzing Governor Jerry Brown’s May 2012-13 Budget Revise, which estimates a state deficit of $15.7 billion, up from a January 2012 estimate of $9.2 billion.
According to the Office of the CEO, the revise proposes a number of what it perceives to be solutions to address the increased deficit, including an additional $4.1 billion in spending cuts, which would bring the total of proposed spending reductions to $8.3 billion. A number of these cuts directly, and significantly, impact services that the County provides to its most needy residents.
State Budget actions over the last 4 years have affected Los Angeles County programs by over $1.4 billion, including:

Program Reductions:

FY 2008-09:                          $ 150.1 million
FY 2009-10:                          $ 276.4 million
FY 2010-11                           $   88.7 million
FY 2011-12:                          $ 363.3 million

County Losses:                      $ 878.5 million

Proposition 1A/State Borrowing of Property Taxes:       $ 365.0 million (December 2009)

State Reimbursement for pre-2004 Unfunded Mandates:     $  187.0 million

“The biggest State Budget impact to Los Angeles County, by far, continues to be the shift in responsibility for certain public safety and health related programs from the state to counties, which was part of last year’s budget,” CEO William T Fujioka said. “How these programs are funded, both in this budget and in future budgets, remains a major unresolved issue for our County.
“The requirement for the Governor to secure a permanent long-term funding source for these new programs has been conveyed by our Board of Supervisors on many occasions over the last several months.”
“I can’t convey how difficult it is to make the cuts we are facing,” Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, said in an interview with NBC station KCRA of Sacramento, adding that it was inevitable that California would have to raise taxes.
“This is a very, very serious situation that can’t be solved simply by cuts,” Dickinson said. “We’ve cut the state general fund budget by about 20 percent over the last three years, so it’s not a matter of continuing to cut. We’re beyond being into the bone at this point.”
On Saturday, Brown released a YouTube video criticizing previous legislative fixes as “gimmicky.”
“We’re still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s,” Brown said in the video. “Tax receipts are coming in lower than expected, and the federal government and the courts have blocked us from making billions in necessary budget reductions. This means that we will have to go much further and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year.”