California's Brown, Lawmakers Reach Budget Deal

SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders reached an agreement Thursday to finalize a budget to close the state’s nearly $16 billion deficit.

The governor said in a statement the Legislature will meet next week to consider the settlement on the budget, which lawmakers already passed last Friday with many details unresolved.

The “conceptual” agreement resolved the differences the governor had with his fellow Democrats over cuts to welfare and education, the release said.

“This agreement strongly positions the state to withstand the economic challenges and uncertainties ahead,” Brown said in the statement.

The states fiscal year ends June 30.

Legislators also wanted to cut the state’s reserve to $500 million from Brown’s proposed $1 billion. Standard & Poor’s analysts, who just upped the state’s outlook to positive, had warned against cutting the reserve.

Last week, the Legislature sent Brown the shell of a $92.1 billion general fund budget along with six other bills, to close an estimated $15.7 billion budget gap for fiscal 2013.

The budget relies mostly on Brown’s proposed temporary tax hike that will be put to voters in November to help raise the $5.9 billion of new revenue needed for the budget. If that fails, cuts would be triggered mainly to education.

But lawmakers left dozens of budget trailer bills, which detail how the budget would be implemented, for a vote to ensure they are on the same page as the governor.

The Legislature is expected to take final votes on the leftover trailer bills in the coming days.

One of the trailer bills that has yet to pass is the controversial “clean-up” legislation meant to hem in the uncertainty created by a law last year that dissolved California’s redevelopment agencies.

As part of the deal with the governor, $250 million of “pass-through payments” that had been slated by the Legislature to be taken from counties that had received them from former redevelopment agencies will reportedly be left untouched.

Despite the unfinished business, Democrats have insisted they passed a balanced budget on time.

Last year, Controller John Chiang docked lawmakers’ pay for what he called a late, unbalanced budget, which the governor originally vetoed.

Brown eventually signed a slightly different bill before the end of the fiscal year.

Earlier this year, Democratic leaders sued Chiang for that move and won a judgment in state court that curtailed his power.

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