State may end April $3B ahead of schedule

by Brian Leubitz

The news that April revenues are higher than expected is unambiguous good news. However, this being budget news, there are always caveats. First, the bottom line:

California’s tax revenues began 2013 stronger than expected and will end the all-important month of April some $3.5 billion ahead of Gov. Jerry Brown’s assumptions.(John Myers / News10)

Given the past decade, you can’t help but smile upon those numbers. However, Gov. Brown has already said that he isn’t keen to spend any of the excess quite yet. First of all, much of that money will be automatically diverted to make up for funds cut out of Prop 98 K12 education guarantees. And there is still speculation that a lot of the money was one-time bonuses given out by businesses before the Prop 30 tax increases took hold.

There are sure to be debates in the Legislature about providing additional funding for some of the very worthy programs that were slashed over the last few years. However, don’t expect Gov. Brown to go along with most of that additional spending, as he has already indicated that he’d prefer to save any excess revenue.

All that being said, it is certainly refreshing to be in the situation of discussing excess revenue than our tired budget slashing debates of past years.