Jerry Brown to order new round of California budget cuts

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Gov. Jerry Brown is announcing a revised budget forecast Tuesday, and with California’s economy not growing as quickly as Brown and Democratic lawmakers hoped, state funding for public school busing could end and deeper cuts to the state’s universities, community colleges and health programs could come in weeks ahead.

Brown will announce his administration’s revised budget forecast in Sacramento on Tuesday afternoon. It is expected to be more optimistic than one from the state legislative analyst’s office released last month which predicted deep cuts to public schools, including the reduction of the school year by up to seven days in some districts.

Under the budget deal reached by Brown and Democrats this summer, the state would face up to $2.5 billion in automatic “trigger cuts” if finance officials determined the state’s revenue was not meeting expectations.

Early Tuesday, there was hope among Democrats that the administration’s new forecast would avoid most of those cuts.

Finance officials say their rosier revenue projections were made after reviewing recent tax-collection receipts from the state’s Franchise Tax Board. They say state income and corporate taxes are coming in slightly higher than what the legislative analyst anticipated.

-- Anthony York in Sacramento

Related Links

Deeper state budget cuts expected

The Legislative Analyst’s economic forecast

Capital Notes Podcast: The Budget Triggers