California Controller John Chiang said lawmakers will lose pay until a balanced budget is passed because the budget approved by the Legislature last week and then vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown was incomplete and unbalanced.
“My office’s careful review of the recently passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted, or unfinished,” Chiang said in a statement Tuesday. “The numbers simply do not add up, and the Legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the governor.”
In November, voters passed Proposition 25, requiring lawmakers to pass a budget on time or lose pay for every day it is late. The formal constitutional deadline to adopt a budget is June 15.
The initiative also lowered the requirement for passing a budget to a simple majority from a two-thirds vote.
According to Chiang’s analysis, the vetoed budget had $89.75 billion of spending, but only provided $87.9 billion in revenue.
“My job is not to substitute my policy judgment for that of the Legislature and the governor; rather, it is to be the honest broker of the numbers,” Chiang’s statement said.
Brown cited the billions of dollars in borrowing and the legal maneuvers the Legislature used to close a $9.6 billion hole as the reason for his veto.
The budget sent to the governor closed the gap using mainly one-time fixes and was passed by Democrats with a simple majority.
Brown has been unable to get enough minority Republicans on board to attain the two-thirds threshold he needs to support his key revenue plan, an election that would ask voters to approve extending some temporary taxes that expire June 30.
