Governor Likely to
Call Special Session
Barring an Economic Turnaround
According to Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will call a special session to deal with a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall before November 30, 2008, unless there is a significant economic turnaround. “We don’t think we can wait until December 1st,” McLear said Tuesday during his weekly briefing as reported in the Sacramento Bee. Holding the special session in November would require the current legislators, whose terms may end in December, to deal with the Budget problem.
The Governor’s Department of Finance earlier this month issued a rough projection estimating that the state will take in $3 billion less in revenues through June 30 than the enacted Budget anticipated. But Schwarzenegger wants the Department to bounce its numbers off of outside economists and forecasters during an October 28 conference before calling a special session, according to McLear and Department of Finance spokesman H. D. Palmer.
—Ron Bennett and John Gray