California lawmakers send Gov. Gavin Newsom a budget that ensures they get paid

As budget negotiations continue, California lawmakers on Monday sent Gov. Gavin Newsom an unfinished spending plan that will allow them to keep getting paid.

Monday’s budget vote was largely a formality. Lawmakers have to pass a budget by June 15 to continue receiving their salary, under a 2010 law approved by voters through a ballot initiative.

In the meantime, lawmakers and Newsom are working to hammer out a budget deal. Lawmakers and the governor have proposed competing proposals for how to balance a budget with an estimated $54 billion deficit caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

Democratic legislators are angling to avoid roughly $14 billion in cuts Newsom proposed in May that would be triggered July 1 if Congress does not send states more financial assistance.

They called those proposed cuts “draconian” and laid out what they described as a more “empathetic” approach. The lawmakers argue that deep cuts to programs that help low-income people will cause more Californians to rely on government assistance and become homeless in the future, ultimately costing the state more.

On Monday, they passed their own budget plan, which attempts to avoid slashing education and health care funding by delaying cuts in anticipation of future economic relief, even as they acknowledged that they will need to make changes as negotiations continue. Their plan contains about $7 billion in cuts that would be triggered Oct. 1 if more revenue doesn’t come through.

Assemblyman Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat and chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, said the plan preserves supportive services and maintains education funding at a time when Californians need safety nets “more than ever.”

“This budget tries to continue to help those people in need while at the same time being fiscally sound, fiscally balanced,” Ting said. “Yes, we do borrow from other parts of the state budget. Yes, we do defer some payments to schools. But we’d rather do that than start the school year in cuts. We’d rather do that than through cuts in health care.”

Senate Budget Chair Holly Mitchell noted that the plan lawmakers passed Monday was dramatically different from what they anticipated at the start of the year, when fiscal analysts were predicting a budget surplus.

“This budget is the best we can do to make sure we don’t cause extra, undue harm onto those who have already been victimized either economically or as the result of the virus,” the Los Angeles Democrat said. “This is not where we thought we would be in January, but it’s where we are today.”

Lawmakers have acknowledged that they will have to make changes to what they pass as negotiations with the governor continue and the state’s economic situation becomes clearer.

But even as Assembly Democrats advocated for more money during floor speeches Monday, Republicans said spending cuts are necessary.

Assemblyman Jay Obernolte, R-Big Bear Lake, called the Legislature’s budget “structurally irresponsible” because it closes a $54 billion deficit “through what can only be charitably be described as budgetary gimmicks.”

“I know it’s difficult to have a conversation about cutting funding. It’s difficult to talk about what funds we should reduce spending on,” he said. “But we are the adults in the room. It is our responsibility to have those discussions.”

A senior Newsom administration official who declined to speak on the record said Monday that lawmakers and executive branch officials have made good progress toward a deal, and that the administration has agreed to not cut childcare programs and in-home supportive services that aim to keep adults out of nursing homes, both areas Newsom had initially proposed cutting in his revised May budget plan.

The administration has also agreed to continue a planned expansion of Medi-Cal eligibility to low-income seniors that was agreed to in the budget passed last year but had not yet been implemented, the official said.

Both Newsom and lawmakers are lobbying the federal government for more aid, which they argue states desperately need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I remain confident that something will happen at the federal level to mitigate the impact at the state level,” Newsom said at a Monday news conference.

They are also waiting on revenue from income taxes that has been delayed this year because of the pandemic. Normally, officials would have much clearer picture of the state’s fiscal outlook, but the delayed tax deadline means lawmakers and Newsom won’t have a clear picture of how much money is available before the next fiscal year starts July 1.

Andrew Acosta, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist, said because there’s a Democratic supermajority, the process is unlikely to mirror the “ugly” fiscal disagreements during past budget impasses.

“It is a little different than the budget food fights we had in the past,” he said. “At least in the current environment they seem to be talking.”

Newsom will have until the end of the month to sign or veto the proposal.

This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 2:34 PM with the headline "California lawmakers send Gov. Gavin Newsom a budget that ensures they get paid."