Delay Likely for State Budget

California’s next budget is unlikely to be approved by a June 15 constitutional deadline, according to a key state lawmaker working on the spending plan.

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, the Sylmar Democrat who chairs the legislative committee crafting the state’s 2001-02 budget, described the likelihood of the document being delivered to Gov. Gray Davis by Friday as “almost an impossibility.”

“It bothers me in the sense that I wish we could have had it done on time,” said Cardenas.

Budget staffers are paging through what is expected to be a $100-billion spending plan in search of trims, following word from Davis that he wants a $2-billion reserve--roughly double the $1-billion figure he proposed in May--to guard the state against possible economic hard times.

Cardenas said he expects the bipartisan group of lawmakers negotiating the budget to wrap up work this week, paving the way for the Legislature to take it up sometime next week. He blamed the anticipated delay, in part, on the state’s energy meltdown, which he said has consumed lawmakers’ attention.

While the state’s energy mess may be a new phenomenon, the prospect of lawmakers violating the state Constitution is an old one. The Legislature hasn’t met the June 15 deadline for approving the budget since 1986.

Such legislative gridlock has caused numerous governors to miss another key deadline: signing the budget by the July 1 start of the new bookkeeping year. The first violation occurred in 1969, when Gov. Ronald Reagan fought the Legislature over money for education. Reagan signed his state budget of only $6.2 billion on July 3.

Lawmakers took a drubbing in public opinion for the delay, prompting them to set the June 15 date for the Legislature to approve a budget and forward it to the governor to sign by July 1.

There is no penalty for violating either deadline.

Consequently, budget delays have materialized in a variety of scenarios, ranging from the state being flush with cash to being mired in a recession.

Political wrangling has also contributed to delays. Democrats have been in charge of both the Legislature and the governor’s office for three years, but they have found stubborn opponents in the Republican minority, whose approval is necessary to pass the budget by a two-thirds vote.

Republicans are calling this year for a reserve of at least $3 billion, for elimination of a quarter-cent sales tax and for sales tax revenues on gasoline to be permanently dedicated to transportation. They have indicated that the latter demand, which would require a constitutional amendment, is crucial to winning Republican support for Davis’ plan to borrow $2.5 billion in transportation money to balance the next two budgets.

“It’s a massive process that takes time,” said Finance Department spokesman Sandy Harrison. “By virtue of the way the calendar works we get tax revenues in April, we revise the budget in May . . . it’s an awful lot to get done.”

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Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story.