While California's legislators will return from their shortened summer recess early in August to wrestle with the overdue state budget and its $17.2-billion shortfall, budget negotiations will be neither smooth nor speedy, say California Catholic Conference officials.

"Rumors are that the state's going to run out of money Sept. 1," said Linda Wanner, CCC associate director for governmental relations. "Though legislators are due back in Sacramento Aug. 5, it doesn't look good [since] they are so far apart on issues."

With the existing partisan stalemate climate in which Republicans say new taxes demanded by Democrats are out of the question and the state's rising fiscal costs exacerbated by the recent California fires, lawmakers have a huge task ahead of them in closing the deficit in the state's $101.8 billion budget. On July 21, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met privately with top legislative leaders in a "Big Five" meeting to address budget concerns.

According to a July 18 Los Angeles Times article, legislative leaders are considering a "complicated scheme" to resolve the state's deficit by raiding funds voters have set aside for transportation and local government services which Gov. Schwarzenegger said would probably force a state sales tax hike.

Though the governor said such a plan is not a good idea, he did not rule out signing off on it to get a budget passed before the state plunges into a cash crisis. "From my perspective, getting a budget in place will take the whole month of August," said Wanner.

Though the state budget is far from being finalized, Wanner noted that the three budget CalWORKS proposals 2008 Catholic Lobby Day participants were most concerned about involving "safety net" cash assistance to children were rejected by the legislative Budget Conference Committee by majority vote. Conference committee members did agree to cut funding for naturalization --- another lobby day issue --- by 10 percent ($300,000).

"We continue to advocate against the withholding of COLAs [cost of living adjustments] and the budget reductions for food security," said Wanner. She emphasized that these proposals are "by no way safe throughout the rest of the budget process. The Big Five could cut any one of these as they move forward….We will continue our advocacy efforts with members of the legislature until the budget has been voted on."

Wanner pointed out that 90 percent of California's budget is spent on education, health and human services, state prisons and local government programs. Budget cuts will likely reduce the availability of some social service programs.

"It's too early to say what programs or services will be cut," said William Fujioka, chief executive officer for L.A. County. However, in a Los Angeles Times article last week, he said budget proposals forcing further cuts in healthcare and human services would have a "significant" local human and social impact.