No Budget . . . So What Else Is New? : At last, Wilson and Legislature may be on move

California has entered a new fiscal year without a state budget. Unfortunately, that’s not news. Nor is the brazen, transparent and mean-spirited politics so amply on display in Sacramento. But now there may be hope that the nonsense won’t go on much longer. That’s because Gov. Pete Wilson, back from out-of-state presidential campaigning, met with legislative leaders Wednesday and said he believes a state budget accord may be reached by the end of next week. Good news--if it holds.

As usual, the budget’s troubles result from differences between the Democrats and the Republicans. Complicating the process on the Assembly side is the bitter in-fighting among Republicans stemming from the deal between Assembly Speaker Doris Allen and former Speaker Willie Brown; Brown, the Democrat Republicans love to hate, engineered Republican Allen’s ascent to the top job.

Amid all the machinations there had been little advance. Finally, serious negotiations on the governor’s proposed $56-billion budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year have begun. Wilson’s plan includes a controversial 15% tax cut over three years and reductions in welfare spending.

The apparent progress could not come at a better time. It sends the right signals at a point when fiscal management within California is under close review by credit rating agencies because of Orange County’s bankruptcy. Los Angeles and other counties are grappling with their own budgets, and if Wilson has his way he will take more money from local governments. Thus the uncertainties about the state budget could hold up definitive budget planning at the local level.

Sacramento has been taking its time, knowing that the state is not likely to run out of cash--something that actually happened in 1992. (Remember IOUs?) Under a court ruling, state Controller Kathleen Connell must pay most state workers on time, and there is indeed money for that. However, without new budget authority, she will not be able to pay for goods and services delivered after July 1. Unless there is a budget soon, the state will be unable to pay the vendors who supply state hospitals and prisons, the nursing homes that house some Medi-Cal patients or for the prescriptions for many other state residents on Medi-Cal. If the standoff continues beyond Aug. 1, about 33,000 state workers won’t get paid.

Sacramento traditionally breaks for the summer in July. The legislators and the governor should not leave until there is a new budget. That means making up a budget gap of as much as $1.8 billion. Now that Wilson is back in the state, can he induce a sufficient number of the unruly Assembly members to set aside politics and get down to the business that they were elected to do?