7-20-07 A Little Budget History Trivia

Volume 20 For Publication Date: July 20, 2007 No. 16

A Little Budget History Trivia

It is now mid-July and California still does not have a Budget for the new fiscal year. Next week, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez plans to bring the Budget up for a vote. It has been reported that his version will contain less spending, but details are unavailable. The Speaker hopes that he’ll be able to garner enough Republican support to send the 2007-08 fiscal plan to the Governor.

Don’t get your hopes up that the Budget will be passed though. According to news reports, Republicans are solidifying their resolve and are expected to oppose the proposed Budget.

In fact, legislators on both sides of the aisle are preparing themselves for a hot Sacramento summer. Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines is advising his colleagues to plan on being in Sacramento after July 20, 2007, (the date the Legislature is supposed to begin its summer recess), while Speaker Núñez has cancelled his vacation plans.

With that, we thought it would be helpful to look at history to see how late the Budget has been over the last 20 years. According to the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review:

· Only four times in two decades has the Governor signed a Budget by the beginning of the fiscal year. Not once in those four budget years did the Legislature meet its June 15 deadline.

· The Budget was enacted ten times in the month of July.

· The Budget has been signed into law in the month of August only four times, with two of those being in the first week of the month.

· The Budget was enacted in the month of September twice over the past 40 years. In 1992, then-Governor Wilson signed the 1992-93 Budget on the record-setting date of September 2. That record was broken by three days when former Governor Davis signed the 2002-03 Budget on September 5, 2002.

—Dave Heckler