Budget, Jerry Brown

The Governor’s May Revised Budget: Tomorrow at 10

Budget “surplus” headed to education?

by Brian Leubitz

I’m a nerd, so this tweet was very exciting:

Now, I’ll probably we watching this live online, but in case you can’t, I’ll make a few comments tomorrow. However, before we get the details of where the Governor is looking, a few points.

First, the so-called surplus is looking like it might end up in the $4.5 billion range. However, before we get any plans on how we can spend it, Prop 98’s educational funding guarantees get precedence. We have already “borrowed” from Prop 98 guaranteed money, and much of that will have to be paid back to the schools. Not exactly the end of the world (in fact, more money for schools is a very, very good thing), but it leaves less flexibility than perhaps the Governor would prefer.

The Governor would like to leave much of that money as some sort of rainy day fund, but other interests are clamoring for the restoration of some of the worst cuts from the past few years. The judiciary has been especially hard hit, and social services budget are minuscule compared to the past. If the governor is going to be able to save some of that money, he’ll have to negotiate some sort of compromise with the teachers and education advocates while also holding off on some of the critical spending priorities we are facing.

We’ll get a lot more details when the May revised budget comes out tomorrow…