We are NOT giving up on the State budget!

On September 23, the Governor signed a budget 85 days late and $9 billion short.

It underfunds and undervalues our schools, health care, and other vital services. This budget cuts $3.3 billion from public K-14 education and gives the governor new powers to cut funding for some education programs mid-year. It also undermines Proposition 98, the minimum school funding law, and locks in California’s status as a “bottom-of-the-barrel” state in terms of education funding.

Like most failed budgets in recent years, it’s full of gimmicks and borrowing and steals money from our future. The people of California got real and permanent deficits instead of real and permanent solutions.

Sound extreme? There’s more...permanent tax cuts for corporations and permanent rules on spending that make it nearly impossible to restore the more than $14 billion in cuts the Governor and the Legislature made over the last three budgets. So that means one more thing would be permanent: the cuts.

Despite deep cuts, and only temporary protection for vital services despite the big losses, SEIU members and our allies were able to protect—for now—many programs that had been targeted by the Governor and some legislators.

But it’s clear that the rules of the game are loaded against working families in Sacramento. If we don’t take action over the coming months we are looking at a very bleak future. Right now we are doing an analysis of what went wrong with this budget battle and how we can change the rules of the game next time. That includes creating accountability for legislators on both sides of the aisle.

In large part, this failed budget is the direct the result of the two thirds vote requirement to pass a budget, allowing minority control over the process and making it nearly impossible to make the difficult decisions necessary to fix the sick system.