Now that you’re truly titillated, allow me to explain.  Today, Director of Finance Mike Genest and Treasurer Bill Lockyer meet to discuss the amount of money California can expect to receive from the federal stimulus package.  The meeting is public and will begin at 10am.  Some of our Twittering favorites like Anthony Wright and John Myers will be on hand.

Why is this important?  Well, if you’ve been following things, at issue is the budget “trigger” that would be reached if the state meets a threshold of $10 billion dollars collected from the federal government that can offset General Fund spending.  That trigger would reduce tax increases and eliminate some of the worst cuts from the budget deal in February.  While there lurks the spectre of a continuing deficit for FY 2010, meaning that any cuts and taxes saved by the trigger would just increase that deficit, the consequences of particularly these cuts are very real as well.  They are almost all focused on health care for the very neediest members of society.  The aforementioned Anthony Wright explains:

More directly, about three million low-income California parents, seniors, and people with disabilities will lost dental, optometry, podiatry, psychology, and other benefits. A full run-down of the lose benefits, and their economic and human impacts, is available in a handout on our website.

As the chart shows, the list of Medi-Cal benefits to cut share one striking characteristic: elimination of these benefits is not cost-effective and instead is likely to cost the state more to provide care to the same population. For example, the elimination of optometry services means that Medi-Cal beneficiaries will go to ophthalmologists.

The elimination of podiatry means more expensive and less expert care from physicians. The elimination of incontinence creams and washes will lead to Stage 3 and 4 bedsores—bedsores that would be reportable as adverse events or “never events” if they occurred in a hospital. But because they will happen to persons with disabilities trying to live in the community, they will result in the institutionalization of those who could otherwise have remained in the community. Penny-wise and pound-foolish does not begin to describe these cuts.

Those cuts could be entirely offset by the massive corporate tax cut which could go as high as $1.5 billion dollars a year, so I suggest the legislature look elsewhere for their pound of flesh.  Not to mention that a failure to get the most out of the stimulus funds would do a disservice to the state.  It is unacceptable at this critical time that any money gets left back in Washington.  And the tools are in place to cross the $10 billion dollar trigger point, as The California Budget Project has ably shown.  

It sets up to be an interesting meeting, as the Treasurer has not made many public comments about the trigger, while Finance Director Genest’s reports show the state falling short by $2 billion dollars.  Thanks to the poor drafting of this provision, there’s no telling the outcome if Lockyer and Genest disagree.  Don’t expect a resolution today – the participants have two weeks before a final solution.  

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown are teaming up, along with most of the political establishment in Sacramento actually, to try and get rid of Clark Kelso.  He’s the federal prison health care receiver who has been charged by a judge with ending the cruel and unusual punishment in state prisons and bring the medical treatment up to a Constitutional standard.  Nobody in Sacramento likes him because he insists on spending money to do that.  The argument is that Kelso has already improved prison health care so dramatically that his services are no longer needed.  And today, on the same day that Brown and the Administration’s officials went to court to get Kelso dismissed, two stories are leaked to the Sacramento Bee painting him in a bad light.

First, they printed an article that might as well have been an amicus brief for the court, both lauding the improvements in health care while assailing Kelso’s administrative capacity and costs:

Three years later, prisoners, clinicians and inmate advocates say conditions slowly are changing. Thanks to improvements in clinical staffing, many inmates get skilled, effective treatment. The court-appointed overseer of prison medical care, J. Clark Kelso, maintains that eventually his plans also will save the state billions of dollars.

But a Bee investigation of Kelso’s operations found clinical successes tempered by deadly lapses – including a rise in “possibly preventable deaths” and serious errors linked to fatalities. Administrative missteps have jeopardized the availability of specialist doctors. And the cost of the receiver’s operations and plans dwarfs spending by other states.

These arguments sound exactly like the dichotomy at the heart of the politicians’ case for dismissal – Kelso is good but not good enough, and he’s wasting money.  Just to prove the point, they added a sidebar claiming that Kelso is overpaying staff:

Given the state’s budget woes, the prison health care receivership has raised eyebrows for generous compensation of its employees. A state audit exposed exorbitant salaries in 2007 at the quasi-public agency. Yet enormous salaries remain common.

Last year, seven of 26 staffers – including two part-timers – still were paid more than the $225,000 annual rate earned by corrections chief Matthew Cate. Eight enjoy large Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation pensions on top of their salaries.

And prison doctors and nurses dominate the state’s best-paid roster. More than 240 doctors or nurses, state employees overseen by the receiver, were paid more than the $226,359 earned by the state prison department’s medical chief.

This just appears conspicuous to me.  Leading up to this hearing on Kelso’s dismissal, a major newspaper prints two exposés reflecting negatively on him.

State leaders are in no position to whine about money.  They caused this crisis and continue to cause it every single day through their gross negligence and failure to rein in out-of-control sentencing of non-violent offenders.  The parole system is a mess and increases recidivism.  There is a total failure of leadership at all levels, and somehow they’re trying to pin this on the independent receiver brought in to fix their failure?  I’m all for lowering prison costs, but the best way to do that is to reduce PRISONERS, not give them inadequate facilities or care or rehabilitation and treatment.  Sacramento’s elite doesn’t want to face that, so they Swift-Boat the people who tell them the truth and run away from the real challenges.

Worth noting that the President will be in Southern California for not one but two town hall meetings this week.  There’s one in Costa Mesa at the Orange County Fair and Events Center on Wednesday (first come, first serve starting at 10am tomorrow at 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa).  And the other will be in a Los Angeles location to be determined.  Tickets for that will be distributed through the White House website.  Visit whitehouse.gov/latownhall for details.

There will be an appearance on the Tonight Show With Jay Leno wedged in there as well, and a visit to a manufacturing plant in Pomona.

UPDATE: The LA Town Hall, per Ari B. Bloomekatz, will be at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, a public school at 322 Lucas Ave. near downtown.

A report by California’s Interagency Climate Action Team released this week shows that sea levels can be expected to rise 55 inches by the end of the century, impacting hundreds of thousands of residents along the coast, as well as billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure and construction.  The worst areas would be San Mateo and Orange Counties, where over 100,000 people would be affected.  The report isn’t necessarily looking at how to combat climate change; it’s looking at how to deal with its obvious reality.

The group floated several radical proposals: limit coastal development in areas at risk from sea rise; consider phased abandonment of certain areas; halt federally subsidized insurance for property likely to be inundated; and require coastal structures to be built to adapt to climate change.

“Immediate action is needed,” said Linda Adams, secretary for environmental protection. “It will cost significantly less to combat climate change than it will to maintain a business-as-usual approach.”

We’re talking about flood zones in residential neighborhoods in Venice and Marina del Rey.  We’re talking about the SFO and Oakland airports being covered with water.  Same for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  It’s truly terrifying.  And with this being a global problem where the worst scenarios are increasingly being realized, California is little more than a bystander to this calamity, able to plan against the worst disasters and reduce development in the most affected areas, but unable to truly combat the problem without the rest of the world joining in.  We will get the worst of this, to the point that livability becomes a question.

The full report, The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast, can be viewed here.  They’ve also prepared detailed maps showing the changes that would result from a 55-inch rise in sea levels.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is giving a speech right now at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, the kickoff of his campaign for the state budget items in the May 19 special election.  In some remarks released earlier, it’s clear Arnold is highlighting – and is most concerned about – the spending cap.

“Our state capital is a town that feeds on dysfunction. The special interests, left and right, need the process to be dysfunctional. That is how they control Sacramento. That is how they prevent change.”

[snip]

“But now we have an agreement, passed by two-thirds of the legislature, that puts on the ballot serious budget reform, including a spending limit and a rainy day fund.

“And the very interests, the far left and the far right, that prefer dysfunction over change have already launched a campaign to confuse people and defeat the reform. But this time they are not going to succeed.”

Arnold probably sees this as a selling point, that if Democrats are against his plan, and Republicans are against his plan, then it must be just right.  But this Goldilocks centrism masks the extremism of the spending cap plan, which would ratchet down revenues and cut vital services permanently.  It also represents a serious miscalculation on the part of the Governor, who apparently still thinks his post-partisan message actually works in this state.  That’s the same political genius that has Schwarzenegger polling worse than Carly Fiorina in potential 2010 Senate matchups against Barbara Boxer.  And even Schwarzenegger’s own strategists seem to know that he cannot be the public face of the special election, lest he doom it to failure.

Opponents of the measures say their private polling has shown linking the initiatives to the governor drives down support of the measures. That has been echoed by some supporters of the ballot measures, who have also started testing potential campaign messages.

But (campaign strategist) Adam Mendelsohn said Schwarzenegger’s star power and his ability to get news coverage is still a great asset for the campaign.

“There is no elected official in this state capable of dominating coverage like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The chattering class loves to look at his approval numbers and then cast dispersions, but communicating in a campaign is a lot more complex than just looking at approval numbers.”

Uh, yeah, Mr. Mendelsohn, that’s the PROBLEM.  He’s extremely unpopular with everyone but the Dan Weintraubs of the world.  And there aren’t 17 million Dan Weintraubs living here.

The spending cap, with something for everyone to hate, is particularly vulnerable in the special election.  Republicans have been calling for a hard cap for years, if not decades, but they’ve become so blinded by the Heads on a Stick faction of their party that they cannot look past the short-term of two years of tax increases and realize what they would be getting.  But the Yacht Party infantry clearly doesn’t care: heck, they’re trying to recall Roy Ashburn, who’s termed out in 2010 anyway.  So their entire side, or at least everyone who wants to be elected in a primary, is lining up against 1A.  Meg Whitman has come out against it.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has already announced her opposition to Proposition 1A, and Whitman spokesman Mitch Zak did not rule out the possibility that Whitman would spend money against the measure.

“She’s been very outspoken in her opposition to 1A,” Zak said. “We’ve not made a decision how that opposition manifests at this point. We’re keeping our options open.”

The Flash Report is claiming that Steve Poizner will oppose the measure as well, and he is hinting at contributing funding.

They will be joined by at least some segment of Assembly Democrats.

After a long, closed-door meeting Tuesday, Assembly Democrats remain divided over the budget-balancing ballot measure at the heart of the May 19 special election, Proposition 1A, which would impose a cap and raise taxes.

“Our caucus had a very long discussion on this,” Assembly Speaker Karen Bass told Capitol Weekly. “There are a number of members who are supportive of 1A, there are several members who are opposed to 1A, and there are many others who are trying to decide. We are working through this and we will have another caucus next week,” she said Tuesday evening.

Looks like Bass will have a lot more colleagues to boot out of committee assignments.  You’ll remember that she punished the three Democrats who actually voted against the spending cap on the floor back in February.  Now a good bit of the caucus is revolting.

The caucus did vote to support 1B through 1F, and that’s probably because they know that there’s going to be more cuts coming down the road, and voters opposing the revenue-enhancing items on the ballot will make their job harder.

But, she added, “I’m hearing that we are going to have a $4 billion dollar (revenue) hole, so if the ballot measures don’t pass, then it becomes  $9 billion or $10 billion hole.”

As I said, the crisis continues.

So I’m seeing the anti-tax groups, progressive advocates, the big money in the GOP, half the Assembly Democratic caucus, all against 1A.  On the pro side, Arnold, George Skelton, and Steve Westly, who says 1A will “instill much needed fiscal discipline”.  Yeah, poor people and the blind, get some fiscal discipline, you scumbags!

The wildcard remains the unions, who with even a little bit of financial backing could tip the scales on 1A.  SEIU and AFSCME have delayed formal positions until later this month.  But the Administration is trying to intimidate them into going along with it.

Here’s why it matters to state workers: Last week, the Association of California State Supervisors asked administration officials if the governor would still lay off employees, or if he would abandon the plan since lawmakers have passed a budget.

(Remember, state workers’ twice-monthly furlough is just part of how the governor wants to cut costs. Layoff warnings went to 20,000 of the state’s least senior employees last month. Half could lose their jobs, officials have said.)

The administration’s answer, from notes taken by an association representative: “We hope the five budget-related propositions pass … . If the propositions do not pass, we will be in a worse situation, with more furloughs and layoffs.”

This is despite the fact that 1A would have NO IMPACT whatsoever on the immediate bottom line; in fact, passing it would hurt the budget for state workers more than defeating it.  “Vote like your job depends on it… because it does.”  That must be the working motto.

The question is, will the intimidation work?  Obviously, the fact that the tax increase extensions in 1A are practically hidden on the ballot is going to arouse anger amongst the Heads on a Stick crowd.  And progressive advocates are sticking to principle that an artificial spending cap has failed wherever it’s been tried and is wrong for the state.  In the mythical middle you have the vain Mr. Schwarzenegger, desperately trying to stay relevant.  Ultimately, this is a referendum on him.

UPDATE: And here we go.  The League of Women Voters just announced they’re opposing 1A, along with 1C, 1D, and 1E (selling the lottery and moving money from voter-approved funds for children’s programs and mental health).  This is big if it’s a harbinger of how other groups will line up.