More spending, little restraint in new budget

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Thursday's package, though, includes few other major changes from the package Brown presented in January, shortly before Donald Trump's inauguration put Republicans in full control of the federal government and seemingly within easy reach of repealing the Affordable Care Act and making other promised changes that would mean trouble for the state's bottom line.

Gov. Jerry Brown said his budget was designed with the future in mind, planning for times when the economy is not trending upward.

Jerry Brown on Thursday dialed back his proposed cuts for schools and child care, citing an improved fiscal outlook since January that could cover $1.5 billion more in general fund spending.

"The governor is extremely mindful that we've had boom-and-bust cycles in the past, and we want to smooth those cycles out", said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Brown's finance department.

The release of Brown's budget plan kicks off a month of negotiations with the Legislature.

While introducing his $124 billion general-fund revised budget, Brown once again warned that the economic turnaround "won't last forever" and said he hopes to avoid being caught off-guard by a recession like previous administrations. The Democratic governor called for more than $3 billion in cuts because of a projected deficit he pegged at $1.6 billion.

Those gains led Brown to include $1.4 billion in his 2017-2018 revised budget to continue to implement the Local Control Funding Formula, with funding directed to districts with low-income students, English learners and students in foster care.

Assembly Minority Leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, called Brown's latest budget "a bait and switch", citing voters' approval a year ago of tax increases that he said were to fund health and dental care and support schools.

Mac Taylor, the nonpartisan legislative analyst, said in January that the governor's deficit projection was probably overly conservative.

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Cybersecurity has been high on the agenda of many high-level gatherings of Western military and political leaders. It said it was postponing all non-urgent work and asked people not to come to the accident and emergency unit.

California has gone further than most states in embracing the Affordable Care Act and the state will face deep cuts if portions of the health-care law are repealed, Mr. But he said spending needs to be reined in to build up reserve funds so there is money to address crises like the damage to the Oroville Dam spillways this year.

"We're trying as much as possible to keep us on an even keel", Brown said in reversing his proposed cuts for K-12 schools. The initiative had been promoted by doctors, dentists and others who thought the money would be used to increase their payments, which are significantly lower than private insurance. Administration officials say under a bill passed by the House last week federal funding for Medi-Cal would fall by $6 billion in 2020 and by $24 billion by 2027.

The new plan also contains additional spending.

The revised budget came one day after state revenue reports revealed that April personal income tax returns lagged $700 million behind expectations. As a result, revenue for the first 10 months of this fiscal year fell short by $136 million.

The transportation budget is getting a big boost after the Legislature passed an increase in gas taxes and vehicle fees in April that will generate roughly $5.4 billion annually for transportation projects. "In this budget proposal, they are diverting 30 percent of funding from the gas tax to non-road-related projects like building parks and job training for felons".

Lawmakers have made a wide variety of requests that will be part of the negotiations.

Four senators from Northern California want $100 million for levee repairs at the Oroville Dam, where almost 200,000 people who live downstream had to be evacuated after heavy rains exposed weaknesses earlier this year. That money will go to fix neighborhood roads, state highways and bridges.

Lawmakers from the Bay Area asked for $10 million in response to flooding earlier this year in San Jose.

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