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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Choreographed Ending to Budget "Negotiations"

Blog readers will have to wait a bit until we get an actual budget document outlining the deal between the governor and the legislature. But what is clear is that there really wasn't a negotiation. Instead, there was a choreographed arrangement in which the legislative leaders could display (without much documentation) a kind of wishlist budget and then largely concede to the governor what he wanted. Real negotiations don't end in a day and typically end close to the deadline (which in this case would have been June 30).

That said, UC prez Napolitano can't be happy with this tidbit in the news media:

...The budget is a time for payback. As part of the final accord, the California State University system received an additional bump of $97 million in ongoing funding. UC received a one-time payment of $96 million to pay down its pension liability. In a news conference with (legislative leaders) de León and Atkins on Tuesday, Brown dryly noted that the Cal States did somewhat better in this year’s budget than UC. UC President Janet Napolitano was public in her demands for more money. CSU Chancellor Timothy White took a more low-key approach...


Apparently, Brown was willing to dance with the legislature but not with UC:

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