Declaring that “California’s day of reckoning is here,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today the state should turn its dire budget straits into an opportunity to make government more efficient.
Speaking to a rare mid-year joint session of the Legislature and other constitutional officers, Schwarzenegger acknowledged the billions of dollars in spending cuts he has proposed to close a $24.3 billion hole in the budget will be devastating to millions of Californians.
“People come up to me all the time, pleading ‘governor, please don’t cut my program,'” he said. “They tell me how the cuts will affect them and their loved ones. I see the pain in their eyes and hear the fear in their voice. It’s an awful feeling. But we have no choice.
“Our wallet is empty. Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.”
According to DDay at Calitics, he is still playing games:
He has engaged in several tricks to actually slow down the dispersal of the cuts, priming himself for the moment when the Legislature must hurry up and approve everything he proposes immediately. It’s a neat trick. He released the cuts in stages, with multiple changes, so the relevant committees could not get a full picture. Finally, the full release comes with a little more than a week to go.
One of the things Arnold is promoting is more privately run prisons, which gets me back to something I’ve been wondering about- every time the discussion of California budget or California politics comes up, the corrections officer’s union comes up, yet it occurred to me I really have no idea what the deal is, why they are so powerful, etc. Does anyone have a primer they can point me to, or care to discuss it in the comments or write a blog post I can link to and read?
Frank
My understanding is that the prison guards are politically powerful because there are so many of them.
There are so many of them because there are so many prisoners.
There are so many prisoners because of Cali’s mandatory sentencing laws.
Dreggas
See what Frank said and that about sums it up from what I have seen. Heck just look at any given episode of “Lockup” or any of the documentaries on prisons and they’re at one of the facilities here in Cal. because they’re freakin huge.
Further the prison guard union had a lot of clout under Gray Davis IIRC. There’s also the bogeyman of releasing “convicted felons” into your neighborhood if their funding gets cut. It happens in L.A. at county, there’s threats to funding, they threaten to release prisoners and try to scare the bejebus out of the populace. Never mind they’re letting out the prisoners that were put there because of stupid sentencing laws and stupid drug possession charges.
kid bitzer
“But we have no choice.”
uh, except the obvious one, of paying your bills by raising taxes.
you know? like when a family can’t balance its budget, sometimes someone has to get a paper route?
new income stream? more revenue?
the legacy of decades of irresponsible, dishonest republican anti-tax fanaticism.
Dreggas
FWIW I personally think one of the things that has fucked up this state is government by ballot initiative and/or proposition. People vote for these things and could care less where the money comes from. It’s also one of the reasons why it’s so hard to raise taxes, especially on the super rich and their McMansions (see property taxes) thanks in large part to these ballot measures.
DarrenG
Good summary of the CCPOA’s place in California politics here.
Key points:
– The annual budget for prisons in California has increased from $300 million in 1980 to over $10 billion today, thanks to the war on drugs and a generation of successful lobbying against any criminal justice outcome other than incarceration.
– The CCPOA is the second-largest PAC in the state and has only one issue to lobby over — more and bigger prisons and prison budgets.
– The average prison guard in California makes $10k more per year and is guaranteed better benefits than the average teacher. Corrections officers are only required to have a high school diploma and 6 week training course.
{Edit: It’s not a straight numbers game — there’s around 30k corrections officers in the state and over 300k teachers, yet the prison guards’ union is many times more powerful than the CTA.}
Dreggas
@kid bitzer:
It’s harder than hell to raise taxes on anyone here in California. They tinker with small increases on sales taxes because that’s about all they can do.
BFR
I think it has less to do with 3 strikes – this isn’t unique to CA and more to do with the size of the state. I couldn’t find the exact ranking but CA isn’t in the top 5 for incarceration rates.
It’s easy to blame 3 strikes for some of the ills of the state but I’m not sure it’s fair.
Wile E. Quixote
I wonder how much money Arnold could save if he used his mighty powers as the gubernator to simply grant clemency to everyone who is currently serving time in a California prison for a non-violent drug offense?
asiangrrlMN
@kid bitzer: Damn right.
@Dreggas: Yeah, well, it shouldn’t be so damn hard.
I’m a tad grumpy because Ratface Pawlenty is doing the same thing here in MN where we can, you know, actually RAISE taxes rather than just slash and burn. Yet, he’s bragging about how he cut taxes and spending (except to buy stadiums for his rich homies) while being governor. Ass.
Doctor Gonzo
Nothing will change in California until they trash their existing constitution and get one that a) doesn’t have Prop 13, b) doesn’t require a supermajority to raise taxes, and c) doesn’t allow for so many initiatives and referenda. Anything short of that is putting lipstick on a pig.
Zam
Tons of money to be made off of all those California hippies
r€nato
Gee, I thought that electing the Governator was going to fix everything in California, because it was obviously all Gray Davis’ fault…
DaveInCalif
@Frank: the prison guards’ union was powerful long before California’s Three-Strikes law was passed. I think it’s more a combination of an intensive PR effort (according to this), bolstered by the whole tough-on-crime movement of the last few decades.
Note that the union did work to help get California’s expensive and harsh version of three-strikes passed, a fact I find truly disgusting.
Dreggas
@r€nato:
Gray Davis is, was, and always will be a jack-ass. He was ineffective and IMO he deserved the boot. But he was only a part of the problem.
Steve Balboni
I bet I’m the only reader of yours who is not only a union organizer but who is also working on organizing the corrections officers in my state right now. First and foremost, no one calls them guards – it’s consider demeaning.
Now on to why they are so powerful, my guess is that it comes from size and past activity. This is true for any labor union. You become powerful because of your size and because your members have shown a propensity for political action.
Corrections officers have to watch each others back every single day in order to not just stay safe but to stay alive. They understand collective action and what it means to work as a team to achieve a goal in a way that most people will never be able to comprehend. When a politician messes with their budget it jeopardizes their safety and their lives. In my experience they’re also not at all shy about telling politicians what they think. They’re no nonsense and very direct. This makes them particularly good at political action.
Zifnab
@Frank: I hear they are also exceptionally well paid.
Of course, after California goes through privatization, I’m sure a round of union busting by the corporate overlords will set’m straight.
Dreggas
@asiangrrlMN:
See Dr. Gonzo’s post. Due to ballot initiatives and other crap they have it set in the constitution of the state that a super majority is required to raise taxes along with a whole shit load of other stupid stuff and as everyone saw with Prop h8 it only took a small majority of voters to amend the constitution. Again, government by ballot initiative.
Steve Balboni
@Zinfab Maybe they’re paid well in CA but that’s not the case for most corrections officers across the nation. They’re paid less than they would make at many counties.
It’s a common belief that state employees get paid well and have great benefits. That’s far from true for most state employees.
Scott
California’s plight scares the crap out of me, ’cause I live in Texas and it’s a damn miracle that Rick Perry hasn’t already proposed cutting off every single public service in the state. Our Lege, divided between lunatic true believers and spineless cowards who are afraid of the true believers, probably wouldn’t even hesitate to sign off on it… :(
John Cole
@Steve Balboni: You know, I should have known that. They are called Corrections officers, right? Half the guys in my unit in the Guard were former active duty, now CO’s and in the guard. I’ll fix the post.
Martin
The prison guard union is very focused with their dues – moreso than the teachers union. They dumped a TON of money into Davis’ campaign coffers and they could afford to buy a recall election of Arnold.
Meanwhile, education is just getting massacred out here. In higher ed, our projected budget cut next year is so large that if we laid off 100% of staff, we’d still be over budget.
Zifnab
@Steve Balboni: The guards down here in Texas do pretty well. I know a 21-year-old girl that worked in a prison not far from where I live. She took the job because it paid in the $40k range to anyone with a high school diploma. Had she stayed with the job, she’d probably be making in the $50-$60k range.
I dare you to do better without setting a foot in college.
Steve Balboni
@John Cole
Yes, Corrections Officers. No worries John, it’s a very common mistake.
FWIW a large number of my members are ex-military. I’m not sure what they thought of their bearded, lawyer union organizer at first but damn if these guys don’t understand the power of their numbers. Much easier to organize than a bunch of white collar cube rats ;)
Dreggas
@Steve Balboni:
I don’t know the actual numbers but Corrections officers here in Cal. make a pretty good living.
Steve Balboni
@Zinfab well that is significantly better than Colorado and above the average for the nation. Good for them!
Dreggas
@Steve Balboni:
That’s because us white collared cube rats are anti-social and we like it that way :P
Tonal Crow
I recommend fixing the California budget thusly:
1. Amend the Constitution to repeal the 10 most-costly earmarked bond measures and redirect their unused proceeds to the general fund. California voters can put any initiative statute — including earmarked bond measures — on the ballot by submitting signatures totalling 5% or more of those cast for Governor in the last election on which that office was on the ballot. And then they can approve them by a majority vote;
2. Amend the Constitution to replace the 2/3rds-of-the-legislature requirement to pass a budget (and to raise taxes) with a simple majority requirement. The combination of the ease of passing earmarked bonds, and the difficulty of passing a budget and raising taxes (can you spell G-O-P?) means that Californians have tended to buy lots of stuff on credit instead of paying for it from current revenues, by raising taxes. This is the primary reason behind California’s budget mess;
3. Amend the Constitution to revoke the public’s ability to pass earmarked bonds; and
4. Legalize and tax pot, terminate pot-related prosecutions, and release all prisoners whose only offenses were pot possession, transport, dealing, etc.
Alas, all this probably has no chance of passage.
Dreggas
@Zifnab:
@Steve Balboni:
California Correction Officer Pay
feebog
In reality, the prison population in California has gone up very little over the last 10 years, about 11%. California currently has about 174K in prisons state wide. It is going to cost us over 10 Billion this year, and will be up to 15 Billion by the 2011-12 budget. There are a number of reasons for this; three strikes has increased the population, but only marginally. There are some other factors that have more impact. For instance, the one size fits all probation laws, which require the same attention to all parolees regardless of the crime they committed. Then there are the health costs associated with housing an increasingly older population. And yes, the Prison Guards Union is quite powerful. They play hardball and are not afraid to use scare tactics whenever necessary. Gray Davis was in their pocket, and Ahnold has followed suit.
Observer
I live in Texas – if not still the first then certainly one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, the vast majority in private prisons.
It’s a blight and it negatively influences conviction rates. I’m no bleeding heart – I have no problem with execution and decades-long time in jail. But they’re not economical, they are poorly run, the convicts are simply housed rather than effectively re-trained, and they create lobby pressure on elected officials to increase the revenue of these megacorps that own them.
Wrong wrong wrong. How anyone can justify a for profit corporation as more efficient than non-profit government simply doesn’t understand what “efficient” means or has their nose in that trough.
Steve Balboni
Thanks Dreggas
John Cole
@Steve Balboni: Dude- if they are ex-military you are dealing with guys who are used to being jerked around by the system, paid crap, and who really recognize the value of benefits and collective action.
asiangrrlMN
@Dreggas: Oh, I know the reason it’s difficult to pass anything–I was just speaking in my fantasy world in which reasonable citizens could agree that a small hike in taxes is a fair price to pay for the social safety nets that we need. I know, I know, wishful thinking on my part.
Dreggas
@Steve Balboni:
No problem.
DarrenG
@Dreggas: And that’s just base pay, not including overtime or benefits, which are also very generous.
A senior CO in a California state prison can easily have an annual income of nearly $100k.
@feebog: Correct, but it exploded in the 90s, with the current level nearly double what it was in 1990.
Darius
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Jose C
The link to the Berkley site is one of the better overviews of the rise and power of the prison guard union.
To those of you who think dropping the 2/3 requirement is a way of solving the problem, you really don’t understand CA politics. We have the distribution of power we have and the current impasses due to the redistricting after the 2000 census, when the Dems and Repubs got together and agreed on a redistricting plan that created safe districts for most office holders. Therefore there is no incentive to compromise because you can’t threaten them at election time. God help us if one party had the ability to ram stuff through right now – there would be no way to make them pay if they really screwed the pooch.
We also have a lot of the problems listed above – the referendized spending requirements being a big part of the problem with balancing the budgets when time gets tight.
I have lived through a couple of these cycles since I moved there, and the intransigence on both sides this time is the worst I have seen. The legislature was never so bad as this back in the 80’s and 90’s.
And a blanket repeal of Prop 13 is a good way to mess things up more if it was not replaced with something carefully crafted, which is not the California way to do things.
Surreal American
Not for budgetary reasons,mind you. Think sequels
The Other Steve
I really don’t understand how privatizing the prison system would save any money. Certainly not in the long term
Dreggas
@asiangrrlMN:
No kidding. I myself am a firm believer in the 10 cents a roll toilet-paper tax. Everyone has to wipe their ass so everyone can pay.
KRK
@The Other Steve:
Maybe something like this?:
1. Privatize prisons.
2. Invest state funds in publicly traded private prisons.
3. Reap dividends from invariable stock market boom.
4. Profit!
Walker
Where I live in Upstate NY, there are towns that exist entirely because of their prisons. Auburn, NY is this awesome slice of nostalgic yesterday (their drive-in is one of the best in the area; the wife and I go all the time). But without its prison, it would wither and die.
Calouste
@feebog:
174K in prison??
I read the other day that Holland (which has slightly more than half the population of California) was considering shutting some of its prisons because they have 14k capacity and only 12k inmates. But then they don’t lock up everyone there who is caught with a few grams of weed.
Wile E. Quixote
@Steve Balboni
Honesty is considered demeaning? They’re guarding prisoners, they’re not doing anything to correct the behavior that landed those people in jail in the first place, so I fail to see any justification for the euphemism “correctional officers” or why they would consider it demeaning to be called prison guards when that is what they’re doing for a living and when that is what the taxpayers are paying them to do, namely guard the prisoners so that they’ll stay in prison. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to
take outoutplace the trash so that thegarbage mensanitation engineers can pick it up in the morning.Tonal Crow
@Jose C:
No. Almost every state can pass a budget and raise taxes by a majority vote of the legislature. But in California, the GOP can — and does — hold up the budget every single year in order to prevent the Democrats from raising taxes to pay for the stuff we’ve already bought. That, combined with the ease with which voters can put earmarked bonds on the ballot, and approve them, is the primary cause of our budget mess.
Steve Balboni
Mr. Quixote,
Thanks for proving my point for me.
Best Regards,
“Steve Balboni”
tc125231
@Tonal Crow:
From what little I have been able to figure out, you are EXACTLY on target.
UncleCharlie
This is interesting:
http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-66515.html
Wile E. Quixote
@Steve Balboni
As a former state employee of the University of Washington I can tell you that in Washington State the pay for most state employees is less than the pay for comparable jobs in the private sector, however it still isn’t bad. The benefits state employees are comparable and the amount of job security that state employees have, at least in Washington, far exceeds anything that anyone in the private sector in this state has, including those who are in strong unions such as the Teamsters or Machinists.
It’s a trade-off. If you work in the private sector you get more money, maybe get decent benefits and don’t get as many holidays or as much vacation or sick time. If you work for the State of Washington you don’t get paid as much, but your benefits are as good as or better than those of most people working in the private sector, you get more vacation, more sick leave, you can accrue your sick leave in case you get seriously ill and you get paid time off on holidays. I’d like to see the private sector become more like the state in terms of providing decent benefits and more time off for employees and I’d like to see the state become more like the private sector in making it easier to fire employees who aren’t doing their jobs.
tc125231
@Wile E. Quixote: My brother is a lead programmer for the University of Texas, which makes him an employee of the State of Texas.
Your description jibes with evrything I have know about his experience in Texas.
Bill H
@Tonal Crow:
Nothing will solve CA’s problems as long as CA has closed primaries and gerrymandered districts which render general elections meaningless in terms of state government. State legislators answer only to those who vote in the primary, and that is the radically polarized portion of their party. Once they have gotten through the primary, the district is so heavily engineered by party that they do not even need to campaign.
Poll after poll indicates that even within party membership the voters are more flexible on issues that are the state legislators.
The 2/3 issue is a knotty problem, but we could live with it if the legislators were answerable to the voters at large and not merely to the radical wings of their own parties. In the last budget battle we were one vote shy of a budget. That one vote had been on board until the party machinery in his district threatened him with a primary challenge, saying that they would screw him for voting for a tax increase and that he would lose in the primary. He caved and the budget died.
I agree with you on the voters passing earmarked bond spending.
Brachiator
Sorry. That dog won’t hunt. The governor appointed a commission that identified possible areas where efficiencies might be achieved, and put most of these proposals on ballot propositions in 2005. Most of these proposals lost big time, and the conventional wisdom was that since the California economy was growing, cuts were unnecessary.
More recently, the state budget has seen a significant structural deficit, which has increased since Gray Davis was recalled. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans in Sacramento took this seriously. The Dems insisted on increasing spending, while the Republicans simply offered unrealistic libertarian-wet-dream budget proposals, often spear-headed by former California state senator Tom McClintock.
Bullpuckey. We would have been looking at a budget deficit in at least the $15 billion range even had all the recent ballot propositions passed.
The majority of the revenue-related ballot propositions were placed on the ballot either by the state legislature or by special interest groups, not by the voters.
DarrenG
@Brachiator:
How does noting our structural, and as you point out, pre-existing deficit invalidate the point that revenue increases that might have closed the deficit have been blocked for over 30 years by a small minority of anti-tax crusader legislators?
You also seem to have missed the point about ballot measures. The poster you quoted was complaining about the large amounts of earmarked spending contained in ballot measures, not initiate-created restrictions on revenue increases. And how are “special interests” distinct from “the voters?” PACs and such have no special ability to put initiatives on the ballot…
Tonal Crow
@Bill H:
I see very little evidence supporting sentence 1, and sentence 2 establishes a false equivalence between the legislature’s GOP contingent — which indeed responds to (and consists of) its party’s most radical members — and the Democrats, which are largely middle-of-the-road. Every single year the GOP ties up the budget for months in its attempt to prevent the tax increases we need to pay for all the stuff we’ve bought. That must end.
The legislator in question was a member of the GOP who decided to buck the radicals who control his party and his contingent in the legislature. Once again, the budget was held hostage to the radical wing (singular) of a single party: the GOP.
We desperately need to fix this, but it’s only half the problem. Also, voters wouldn’t be as inclined to use this mechanism if they could get priorities through the legislature. But the 2/3rds requirement — and the radical GOP — prevents this. So voters take things into their own hands, and spend with abandon, on our credit card, at twice the cost.
Tonal Crow
@Brachiator:
That doesn’t refute my point. The recent propositions were the product of a procedure dominated by the most radical elements of the state GOP. Thus of course they would not raise taxes enough to pay for the stuff we’ve already bought. Also, the GOP has indeed held up the budget every single year for years, to prevent tax increases.
Every initiative bond (as opposed to legislative bond) can appear on the ballot only if nominated by at least 5% of the voters who voted the governor’s race in the last election. “Special interest groups” propose initiatives, but only the voters can put them on the ballot — and approve them.
Dave C
The university I attend, which is part of the Cal-State system, had to withdraw their Fall schedule due to these ongoing budget problems. It seems all but certain that they are going to reduce the number of classes, and/or reduce the number of new students they admit. There is also a very strong possibility that the state will do away with Cal Grants, which would hurt a helluva lot of students. Total FUBAR.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I live about twenty miles from a California prison (Pelican Bay) and several of my friends and customers work there. One friend retired after thirty years of service and is living on a very healthy pension and medical plan, and I mean VERY healthy. He went through a divorce and confided his financial situation to me, mostly as to how he was working to deny his wife as little of it as he could. He is collecting almost 60K a year in pension payments and his medical plan is one to die for, or at least not have any worry of doing so without expensive but fully covered medical intervention.
Years ago, one of the social workers there (a friend) tried to get me to join up to work with inmates, teaching them mechanical and electronic skills. The wife and I thought about it for a bit and decided not to since I could not see having a job where everything is the same day in and day out. While prison personnel serve a valuable job, I don’t think I could stand having a job where there is no sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. The job would be more of a distraction for the inmates, mostly window dressing since the people involved are serving pretty heavy sentences. The guards have made it clear that an inmate can only earn their way into Pelican Bay, it is not a first stop unless the inmate is an immediate supermax/SHU (Segregated Housing Unit) candidate.
One note: To a person, every single one of them are hard core Repubs, and I mean hard core. McCain/Palin lovers and Obama haters with the bumper stickers proudly proclaiming it.
Darkrose
@Martin: Yeah, but Yudof and the Chancellors are taking a 5% pay cut!
Meanwhile, the new UCD Chancellor is getting six figures, plus moving expenses and a car.
Darkrose
@Dave C: I really, really feel for the students. With the CalGrants being cut, people won’t be able to afford to finish school. The ones who do will be in larger classes with overworked faculty–if those classes still exist.
California used to have two world-class public university systems. The ripple effect of these cuts is going to be devastating.
Brachiator
@DarrenG:
For the nine budget years from 1998-1999 to 2007-2008, California’s tax revenues grew at an average annual growth rate of 5.8%, close to the growth in personal income over the same period of time.
While revenue collections have been volatile (e.g., the dot com boom and bust), the state legislature refused to create a reasonable rainy day fund, but instead insisted on increasing spending. New programs, even reasonable mandates (e.g. Proposition 98’s guarantee on amounts to be allocated to schools), salary and pension increases all promised to break the budget. And they have.
Much of this stuff is covered in the non-partisan state legislative analyst’s reports.
The problem is much of this is dry reading, unless you read crap similar to this for a living (and I do). Worse, columnists like the LA Times’ Mike Hiltzik, who should be an honest broker of information, instead is allowed by his editors to get away with distortions. For example, in a post ballot analysis, he claims (California’s problem is spending? That’s a myth),
But the claim about 30% population growth was dead wrong. the Times later had to correct its own columnist’s math: “The correct figure, based on population estimates from the state Department of Finance, is about 15%”
The inflation figure was gimpy as well, pretty much invalidating this entire analysis.
Bottom line Number 1: California had the money, but didn’t spend it wisely, ignored increasing deficits, and now is in a crisis.
Bottom Line Number 2: Even if everyone agreed that all current spending was worthwhile, the California economy is contracting too quickly, and unemployment (currently around 11%) indicates a shrinking tax base for years to come.
And so, you simply cannot raise taxes high enough to account for decreases in state revenues.
As a recent AP story notes, “Declining tax revenue and overly optimistic assumptions about the tax increases they approved in February have reopened the state’s deficit. Schwarzenegger said state tax revenue has dropped 27 percent from last year and has returned to 2003 levels.”
In short. The state has based its budget in part on guesses about future tax receipts. They have consistently guessed wrong. State tax receipts are shrinking faster than the “experts” imagined.
Uh, you appear not to understand how the system works. Some initiatives actually come from the state legislature. Others, which require voter signatures in order to qualify, have special interest backers.
It’s ugly.
Brachiator
@Darkrose:
Allow me to flesh this out, based on recent news reports.
And UC Davis and UC San Francisco are not the top tier UC schools.
But wait. There’s more.
I’m sure that the new regent is a great person. But is this the wisest priority for the available funds? Meanwhile, the regents claim that the majority of students will not have to pay the increased student fee “because it will be covered by tax breaks and grants in the federal stimulus package.”
These morans plan to hide the increase in student fees by covering it with a one time federal bailout.
The problem with the California budget is not simplistically unions being greedy or even the 2/3 rule stalemate, but with the various administrators and boards, the people who are responsible for spending the money wisely, insisting on acting as though it is business as usual, and that they don’t have any responsibility to come up with innovative ideas to reduce costs and spend money efficiently.
And here, the school administrators made no effort to rein in student fees or to guard against future budget shortfalls.
Yikes. I didn’t intend for this to be consecutive posts. I beg other posters’ indulgence.
LD50
This is an interesting contrast with the California school district my wife teaches at. There, they’re threatening to take away spousal medical benefits after retirement of the teacher (fairly likely), or even to take away the medical benefits of spouses & children while the teacher is STILL working.
Aside from the obvious question of how my daughter’s medical costs will be afforded til she’s 18, I’m independently employed and cannot afford to pay for insurance, so I’m afraid to even contemplate how this will impact my health after I’m 65.
So when Sully chirps about ‘busting the teacher’s unions’ and condemns single-payer as ‘soçialism’, yeah, well, he can lick my asshole.
myiq2xu
Teachers are employed by local school districts, but all the corrections officers are employed by the state.
1 employer means the CCPOA has a lot more leverage.
Brachiator
@Tonal Crow:
This is absolutely false.
Here is LA Times columnist George Skelton on the ballot propositions:
The governor and leaders from both parties, including Democrat Karen Bass, speaker of the California State Assembly, got together behind closed doors and hammered out an agreement.
Then the Okey doke was on. The state legislature wrote both the pro and con arguments that went out with sample ballots. They spent $30 million to push it. They got agreements with the state employee unions and the Indian casinos not to spend any money opposing the initiatives.
The Democrats even allowed the Republicans to pretend that they were holding fast on their “no taxes” pledge. The Republicans agreed that only 3 of their colleagues would vote for the measure, the minimum number of votes from the opposition needed to insure passage.
Republican Assemblyman Anthony Adams admitted to LA Times reporter and public radio host Patt Morrison that the GOP all agreed to the budget deal and decided in advance of the vote who the designated 3 would be. An audio link to Adam’s admission may still be available here.
What I find interesting is that even though there is plenty of easily available information about how this lame budget deal went down, some people insist on rebunking the urban legend that the budget debacle came about because voters refused to vote for necessary tax increases, or that the usual suspects, GOP hardliners stood in the way of more moderate legislators.
OriGuy
Scott Herhold in the San Jose Mercury News:
dday
Thanks for the link. The prison crisis is actually part of the overall mess here, but the more you learn about it the more fucked up you realize it is. Yes, the corrections officers are powerful and they spend lots in campaign donations. But it’s more than that. 1,000 sentencing laws have been created in California since 1978. All of them raised sentences. Not one lowered them. Three strikes is just a symptom, not the proximate cause. We have 170,000 people stuffed into prisons that fit 100,000, and thus they become crime colleges turning nonviolent offenders into hardcore criminals. This also suits the corrections officers fine, because they get massive amounts of overtime. When prisoners get out of jail, it’s a revolving door. We have the highest recidivism rate in the country, and 2/3 of the people who return to jail do so for, get this, technical violations of their parole, thanks to our truly insane parole policies. Our health care in the prisons was so substandard and unconstitutional they put it in the hands of a federal receiver. It’s a clusterfuck all around. I’ve written quite a bit about this, search the “Prisons” tag at Calitics. Honestly I think it’s less about the union than just a failure of leadership and fear over being labeled soft on crime.
Good discussion in the comments…
Zuzu's Petals
@Tonal Crow:
I guess I’m a little unclear on some of your points.
First of all, I’m not sure I agree that bond-by-initiative is the major problem you seem to think it is. For example, I only see three g.o. bonds that have been proposed and approved by the voters in the last nine years. They were “earmarked” for water projects and wetland protection (Prop 50), children’s hospitals (Prop 61), and stem cell research (Prop 71).
I’m guessing most if not all of the proceeds from the first two bond acts have probably been obligated, but assuming there are some “unused proceeds” out there, if per your #1 the state constitution were amended to directly repeal certain bond acts (or more likely amend them so as not to put the authority for bonds already sold into question) and the “unused proceeds” were put into the General Fund, the state would still be paying interest on the proceeds of those bonds for the next X number of years…that is the contractual agreement with the bondholders. Aside from the fact that the proceeds would not be “earmarked,” isn’t it still borrowing money?
In passing, I should also note that as a general matter, while there are quite a few bonds that have been authorized but not issued, very few bonds, once issued and sold, have “unused proceeds.” They are generally only issued when the bond authority determines that the proceeds are needed for the particular project for which they are authorized (the whole arbitrage problem, for one thing), and if so are usually obligated even if not yet spent.
In addition, how would such a change affect the tax-exempt status of the bonds already sold? Federal tax law is pretty convoluted for my understanding, but it is strict as to how the proceeds may be spent, and the state has represented to the bondholders that it would not jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the bonds it has sold them.
Zuzu's Petals
Correction:
I actually found a couple more g.o. bond initiatives. Prop 84 (’06), re water quality, and Prop 3 (’08), re children’s hospitals.
In addition, I should have said the state would be paying principal as well as interest on the proceeds of g.o. bond sales deposited into the General Fund under your #1 scenario.
I keep thinking I may be misunderstanding your proposal, though. Care to clarify?
Zuzu's Petals
@Tonal Crow:
Actually, nine states require a supermajority budget vote in at least some cases. At least 16 states require a supermajority vote, and sometimes voter approval, for some or all tax increases. Not saying I think we should have such a requirement, just that it’s not as unusual as some may think.
In addition, while I agree that uninhibited borrowing is irresponsible, I disagree with your claim that the damage is caused only by initiative bond measures (not sure what you mean by calling them “earmarked” – every g.o. bond is authorized for a specific purpose).
Per my earlier posts, I count a total of five bond acts enacted by initiative measures over the last 14 statewide elections. The amount of the bonds authorized to be issued totaled about $13.55 billion; the total cost, including principal, totaled about $26.8 billion over 30 years. Compare that to the number, and total cost, of bonds proposed by the Legislature and approved by the voters over that time.
Do I think the voters are shortsighted? Yep. Do they often vote for frivolous and costly programs without considering how they will be funded? Yep. Should the scope of the initiative process be reconsidered? I think so. That’s not the same as saying that initiative bond measures are the main culprit.
Zuzu's Petals
@Brachiator:
To be fair, UCSF differs from the other UC schools (except Hastings) in that it is a professional school. It is consistently ranked as one of the top health sciences schools not just in the nation, but in the world.
In addition, it attracts more NIH and other research funding than almost any other school in the US.
Sorry if this comes off as pedantic, but I’d guess running UCSF might require a pretty sophisticated skill set.
Evinfuilt
The only Corrections Officer I’ve known gave up 20+ years working for the Post Office to just enter the field. Mind you he went to work in Florence Colorado (SuperMax) and I know they pay rather well there and have a rather low ratio of prisoners to employees at the facility.
I’m very happy that place is Government run, I wouldn’t like to imagine the types of cost cutting measures a private company would try and pull there.
Brachiator
@Zuzu’s Petals:
You are absolutely correct about UCSF. However, the fact remains that California is running out of money, and we cannot afford to be as generous in attracting chancellors, especially chancellors who are not also deft administrators.
In the case of both UC Davis and UCSF, part of the justification for the generous salaries was that the regents had to match what the candidates could earn in the private sector. But with the private sector shedding jobs and cutting salaries, this rationale does not make sense.
Zuzu's Petals
@Brachiator:
Well, I don’t know if they are comparing it to the private sector for business or the private sector for college chancellors. My guess would be that the chancellors of the top private medical schools still make good money.
In the case of UCSF at least, I can see wanting to attract the very top talent. (UCD is highly ranked in several earth sciences and ag fields, including enology, and brings in a good amount of research money as well, by the way.)
Also by the way, moving costs and car are typically part of the package in the corporate world, and that package plus housing is pretty typical in the academic administration world…and AFAIK UC owns its chancellors’ houses outright.
Tax Analyst
I guess a question I would ask is whether all these “typical” perks were NECESSARY to obtain the services of this person. We are, after all, in a rather large budget crisis that is going to cause large increases in Student fees and large reductions in the availability of State Aid to these students. If you lack the money to handle your basic obligations it really doesn’t matter what the going market rate is for a particular position.
And to restate what Brachiator said above, are these particular wages and percs currently being offered to prospective chancellors, or are these numbers based on what they could command in a more flush economic period?
Zuzu's Petals
@Tax Analyst:
Well, in the case of the the UCSF chancellor:
Zuzu's Petals
Sorry for the screwed-up quote…blockquote function sux.
Dr. Squid
Prisons draining the treasury, and the government fiddles away. Thank you so much George Deukmejian, for declaring that the answer to every single problem in the state to be, “Build more prisons.”
When he’s dead and gone, I’ll be sure to leave a nice fat grogan on his grave.
MNPundit
You know, I really really REALLY hate the “we are shafted in the Senate! We’re a big state!”
No, no you’re fucking not shafted. Because we designed the system that way and you FUCKING AGREED TO IT.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“UC Davis and UC San Francisco are not the top tier UC schools”
As Zuzu’s Petals (Wizardry reference?) noted, UCSF is a different animal than the rest of the UC’s, being a medical/bioscience university, and has several Nobels in its current and former faculty.
At least as far a licensing income and technology development goes, UCSF beats the crap out of the other UCs. It’s not even close, really: only Stanford rivals it on the West Coast at least. Biotech in the Bay Area is dominated by Stanford, UCSF, and Harvard alums: MIT folks are the underdogs.
So yeah, I can see how the UCSF chancellor would be pulling down a half million.
Darkrose
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Zuzu, that’s true. But when they’re deciding whether the staff is going to have to take an across the board pay cut or institute furloughs–when we’re already getting paid less than our counterparts in the private sector, and haven’t had a COLA in two years–Katehi’s salary is a remarkably tone-deaf move on the Regents’ part. Staff morale is already bad; this just reinforces the idea that the upper administrators of the UC system are getting nice fat checks while the rest of us struggle to meet daily expenses.
Not that I’m bitter or anything. Except for the part that I totally am.)
Zuzu's Petals
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
Looks like she took quite a pay cut as it is.
Re my name: Capra, not Wizardry.
Zuzu's Petals
@Darkrose:
Sounds like a UCD staffer talking?! Don’t blame you on the bitterness factor…being a retired state employee, I know the pain.