Gov. Brown offers gimmick-free budget, experts say

Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan a 'good starting point,' nonpartisan analyst says
Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown's Controversial spending blueprint got a welcome boost Wednesday when California's chief Budget analyst called it a "good starting point" for tackling the state's chronic Deficits. INTERACTIVE: Try your hand at eliminating the state deficit The review is far more flattering than the nonpartisan legislative analyst's office offered for many of former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spending plans. In particular, the Budget expert approves of Brow...

An older, bolder Jerry Brown deserves kudos for his budget plan
It's a different Gov. Jerry Brown we're seeing these days — a subtle but significant difference between Brown I and Brown II. The Brown who was Governor at age 36 would not have been as bold — as calmly willing to stick his neck way out — as the 72-year-old version. The contrast—along with a stark stylistic difference between Brown and predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger — was evident at a news conference Monday. The new Governor unveiled his cuts-taxes-and-shuffle r...

An older, bolder Gov. Jerry Brown deserves kudos for his budget plan
Gov. Brown is showing a willingness to take big risks in his share-the-pain plan to close the Budget gap It's a different Gov. Jerry Brown we're seeing these days — a subtle but significant difference between Brown I and Brown II. The Brown who was Governor at age 36 would not have been as bold — as calmly willing to stick his neck way out — as the 72-year-old version. The contrast—along with a stark stylistic difference between Brown and predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Brown's budget gets mixed reviews, San Bernardino County assemblymembers react
Days after California’s Governor released his Budget proposal reactions have been mixed, ranging from cautious optimism to rejections of various aspects. San Bernardino County’s two Democratic assemblymembers said they were pleased Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown released a proposal that was not based on budgeting gimmicks and that would allow lawmakers to produce an on-time Balanced Budget. They also said they were pleased Brown was honest with voters and put forward ideas that would no...

Gov. Jerry Brown begins wooing GOP support for tax plan
Reporting from Sacramento — Before Gov. Jerry Brown can ask voters to ratify the multibillion-dollar tax plan he says will rescue California's finances, he must win over a handful of Republicans with a combination of charm, arm-twisting and Compromise — a task he's already begun. The Democratic Governor needs as few as four GOP votes to place a measure on the ballot that would extend $9 billion in recent tax hikes — levies Republicans have opposed. "I will … go into th...

Public Transit Funding Slightly Better in Jerry Browns Proposed Budget
For the first time in three years, California public transit agencies could see a full dose of funding from the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund, thanks in large part to the passage of Proposition 22, which prevents legislators from raiding Local Government funds, and Governor Jerry Brown, who announced his “painful” Budget plan yesterday. The Brown administration said state funding for local transit agencies would amount to $329.6 million for Fiscal Year 2011-12, significantly mo...

Calif. state workers: Turn in cellphones
SACRAMENTO, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Half of California's 96,000 Taxpayer-funded cellphones for state workers must be turned in -- and thousands of cars and vans may be next, Gov. Jerry Brown said. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be equipped with Taxpayer-funded cellphones," Brown said Tuesday in ordering 48,000 state workers' phones turned in by June. "The current number of phones out there is astounding," said Brown, a Democrat, who took over last week fr...

California Budget: Jerry Brown Dials Back Bureaucrats' Cell Phones
Sacramento, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown is hanging up his state-issued cell phone, and he's ordering half the state Bureaucrats who have the devices to do the same. Brown said Tuesday there's no need for four of every 10 California State Employees to have Taxpayer-funded cell phones. He says some employees may need to stay in touch around the clock, seven days a week, but the proliferation of cell phones is astounding. Brown used his first Executive Order to instruct department heads to cu...

Brown's school budget spurs questions over deferred payments
After Gov. Jerry Brown released his Budget Monday, the big question among education officials was whether K-12 schools had been spared from cuts. Brown said Monday that his Budget protected K-12 schools and kept them at the same level of funding they received in the 2010-11 Budget passed in October. But there were different interpretations of that claim due to ambiguity surrounding payment deferrals to schools. The problem starts with the 2010-11 Budget passed in October. That Budget set fundi...

California slashes official cell phone use
New California Governor Jerry Brown ordered Tuesday the confiscation of half of the cell phones used by Public Employees in the state, as he slashes its Budget to rein in a huge Deficit. Brown, a Veteran Democrat who took over from Republican former film star Arnold Schwarzenegger this month, said far too many Civil Servants had their Mobile Phones provided from the public purse. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be equipped with Taxpayer-funded cel...

California slashes official cell phone use
Stumble This! Los Angeles — New California Governor Jerry Brown ordered Tuesday the confiscation of half of the cell phones used by Public Employees in the state, as he slashes its Budget to rein in a huge Deficit. Brown, a Veteran Democrat who took over from Republican former film star Arnold Schwarzenegger this month, said far too many Civil Servants had their Mobile Phones provided from the public purse. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be ...

We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility | Timothy Garton Ash
Wikipedia is 10 years old this Saturday. It is the fifth most visited site on the Internet. Some 400 million people use it every month. I bet most readers of this column are among them. You want to check something, you Google it; and then, as often as not, you choose the Wikipedia link as the best way in. What is extraordinary about this free encyclopedia, which now contains more than 17m articles in more than 270 languages, is that it is almost entirely written, edited and self-regulated by unp...

Brown names Karen Ross as food and agriculture secretary
Gov. Jerry Brown today announced the appointment of Karen Ross as secretary of the State Department of Food and Agriculture. Ross, who most recently worked as Chief of Staff to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is the former president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers . She has also worked for the Agricultural Council of California and served on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. The 59-year-old Democrat's experience in state agriculture i...

AM Alert: It's the analyst's turn
Looking for more Budget charts and graphs? You don't have to wait long. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor is holding a Press Conference this afternoon to present his office's latest report, titled rather succinctly, "Overview of the Governor's Budget." The report will be available on the LAO's website at 11:30 a.m. The Press Conference is set for 1:30 p.m. Just in time: The Budget committees in both the Senate and the Assembly are scheduled to start considering Brown's proposal tomorrow. As colle...

Pass the California DREAM Act
California Assemblyman Gil Cedillo reintroduced a bill today that would make undocumented College Students in California eligible for in-state Financial Aid. Prospects for passage of the California DREAM Act are brighter this year since Governor Jerry Brown said he supported a previous version of the bill, while Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed it three times. As a state measure, the law would have no effect on an applicant's Immigration status, which falls under federal authority. Even so, pas...

Jerry Brown May Rescue Muni
Muni may get a slight nudge from Jerry Brown, but even if it happens, the emphasis will be on the "slight." Brown's new Budget gives transit agencies access to Money that they've been promised for years, but couldn't access under policies enacted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even though the State Supreme Court ruled that Schwarzenegger's policies were illegal, he kept trying to use the Money for his own projects instead of for transit riders. Over the last few years, transit service has b...

Brown's budget plan -- pain everywhere
Every governmental Budget is inevitably a political document, and the crisis blueprint Gov. Jerry Brown proposes for California is, depending on your perspective, either breathtakingly cynical or strategically masterful. Perhaps it's a bit of both. When you round things out, the Budget Brown introduced Monday proposes $12.5 billion in cuts and $12 billion in tax extensions that will have to be approved by voters in a Special Election this spring. It's a document that spreads its wrenching pain i...

LA County CEO: Brown's Budget Will Hurt
Los Angeles - A top public official said Tuesday he's worried about whether Los Angeles County will have enough funding to support Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to shift a host of responsibilities from the state to counties. County CEO Bill Fujioka told county supervisors that California's most populous county should embrace Brown's proposal to restructure State Government to help resolve a projected $25.4 billion Deficit. Brown on Monday called for $12.5 billion in Spending Cuts, including reduct...

UC Cuts: What Brown's $500 Million Cut Means For UC Budget
California Watch: This story comes courtesy of California Watch. By Erica Perez Just how big is a $500 million cut to the University of California system? Gov. Jerry Brown this week unveiled a Budget that included drastic reductions for the state's public colleges and universities. The plan calls for [PDF] a $500 million cut to the UC, a $500 million cut to the California State University and a $400 million cut to California Community Colleges -- all part of an effort to close a s...

Analyst praises Brown budget plan but sees many risks
In its first review of Gov. Jerry Brown 's Budget proposal, the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office called the plan a "good starting point" Wednesday and praised the Governor for focusing on solutions to fiscal problems beyond this year. But the analyst's report identified several major ideas that could fall through, particularly in Brown's plan to shift a variety of services to local governments and eliminate redevelopment agencies. The 40-page review noted that "there is signifi...

Brown makes case for cuts in budget summary
Budget geeks that we are, we have a pile of Governor's budget summaries on our desk, and Gov. Jerry Brown's budget document is considerably thicker than his predecessor's. One reason is that Brown and his Department of Finance team have added longer narratives to his proposal. Rather than just outline cuts, Brown's document adds arguments for every health and social service reduction, many of which boil down to assertions that California currently offers more public services than other states....

Jerry Brown will 'probably' do budget road show
It would not be unusual for a Governor, having just proposed a Budget, to take his show on the road, soaking up media in key markets and pressuring lawmakers in their home towns. At the end of a day of meetings at the Capitol on Tuesday, Gov. Jerry Brown said he probably will do that, but not yet. "Probably, but I mean, nothing yet," Brown said. "Nothing I can tell you. So, I'm not ready to make that kind of announcement." Brown was meeting with lawmakers that afternoon, and he was planning to...

California's governor to dial back state-issued cellphones
Contracts on each cellphone cost California Taxpayers an average of $36 a month, or $432 a year. (Rich Pedroncelli, The Associated Press ) Sacramento, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown is hanging up his state-issued cellphone, and he has ordered half the state Bureaucrats who have government-paid cellphones to do the same. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cellphones," the new Governor said Tuesday. "The current number o...

Calif. governor orders 48,000 cellphones confiscated
Sacramento, Calif. — Alarmed at discovering that the state pays for 96,000 cellphones, California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an Executive Order Tuesday seeking to cut in half the number of devices being billed to Taxpayers. Requiring 48,000 cellphones to be turned in by June 1 will save the state about $20 million a year. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be equipped with taxpayer-funded cellphones," Brown said. "Some state employees, including d...

Jerry Brown's Cell Phone Crackdown
Sacramento, Calif. — Gov. Jerry Brown is hanging up his state-issued cell phone, and he's ordered half the state Bureaucrats who have government-paid cell phones to do the same. "It is difficult for me to believe that 40 percent of all State Employees must be equipped with Taxpayer-funded cell phones," the new Governor said Tuesday. "The current number of phones out there is astounding." Brown used his first Executive Order since taking office a week ago to instruct department heads to c...