Good news for the parks system and schools in Brown budget proposal

by Brian Leubitz

First, the good news: the state is already substantially ahead of where it was projected to be in terms of revenue projections. Revenues for the month totaled $10.6 billion, surpassing estimates in the state budget by $2.3 billion, or 27.7 percent. Total revenues for the fiscal year-to-date were $2.5 billion ahead (6.4 percent) of budget estimates. And all that means some good points to the Governor’s budget, including no park closures and repaying money owed to the schools under Prop 98.

But Gov. Brown is a cautious man with money these days. Nobody was really expecting him to spend all that new money, and so this budget is kind of what you would expect.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday began a sprint toward his widely expected run for re-election by formally unveiling a $106.8 billion budget blueprint he hopes will give voters what they want. The plan calls for paying off many of the state’s credit cards, creating a $1.6 billion “rainy-day fund” and increasing K-12 school spending by 11.4 percent after years of devastating cuts. And for the first time in recent memory, the budget offers good news for college students and the popular state parks system. …

The proposal won praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for shining a spotlight on California’s $25 billion “wall of debt.” Brown promises to pay it all off in four years, starting with a check that will repay $11 billion owed to schools, retire old bonds and give back money to special funds whose accounts were raided during the depths of the Great Recession.(SJ Merc)

Yet despite praise for repayment of debt, there are still many who are disappointed that more social services were not restored. During the bad years, we made monumental cuts to social services, and at least in this budget, many of them will keep on waiting for restoration. As. Asm. Ammiano points out in the above article, there is still a lot more work to be done on income inequality in this state.