Budget promises or hopes?

Budget continues to be a priority across the state and here in Riverside. The coming question is what happens in January? We know that the state is "short" $12-20 Billion in January. Typically our "share" is 40% -- which is obviously a huge hit to us in the mid-year. However, current theory coming from Sacramento is that we can have "no more cuts in 09-10" due to federal maintenance of effort (MOE). MOE essentially says that unless you want to pay back all of the "stimulus" in California, the state must keep paying education the same amount as they did before. In the current circumstances, we have essentially reached the MOE "floor" -- therefore we can't have further cuts. A similar argument gets made for the 10-11 year; however, there are several of us that have the belief that when the "chips are down" and California is severely limiting its social programs and has further economic risk -- the feds will relent and not hold CA to the MOE.

As a related matter, there was a good article in the last Time magazine regarding California. Similar to the point I made at the end of the blog on 10/16, the article points to the economic strength and recovery of California. Meanwhile, the article also points to the continuing crisis of the budget and governance in the state. There is a difference between the two, and while things truly are getting better for the economy, many of us are caught in the issues, problems, and dilemmas of the continuing budget issue -- which will not be solved easily.