Lawmakers Leave Budget in Limbo

With less than four days to go before breaking the constitutional deadline to pass a state budget, California legislators debated resolutions related to Father’s Day and golf carts for less than an hour Thursday, then headed for the airport to fly home for the weekend.

By day’s end, the Capitol was quiet, empty of most of the state’s lawmakers, who left behind a $38-billion budget hole and no plan to fill it. As the legislators left, they conceded that they will, as they often have in the past, fail to meet the June 15 budget deadline.

As they left, the budget debate churned without them:

* State employees began receiving the first of more than 10,000 notices warning them of possible layoffs. The notices took some union leaders by surprise, and they signaled contract talks in coming days as the government will seek concessions from unions to avert layoffs.

* Some Republican legislators, upon learning that their party leaders were considering a plan to cut $1 billion in funding for local governments, wrote to express their “grave concerns” about that proposal. That idea remains one of many floating through the Capitol as key lawmakers search for ways to close the budget gap.

For the Legislature, however, neither the magnitude of the debate nor the approaching budget deadline was a reason to cancel weekend plans. As they lined up at the Southwest Airlines electronic ticket kiosk to print boarding passes, Republicans and Democrats pointed fingers, lamented the lack of leadership in Sacramento and insisted that they were ready to work through the weekend if there were any point in doing so.

“I could spend the next two weeks in the Bahamas for all the progress I think we are going to make,” said Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood). Koretz complained that the threat by Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga last week to work to end the political careers of any members in his party who vote with Democrats for a tax increase has paralyzed the process.

The only thing left to jump-start it at this point, he said, is for the government to run out of money: “The first time you will see any serious negotiations is when the state starts to shut down in a couple of months.”

Though Koretz is one of the few lawmakers expected back in town before late Sunday night, he is coming not for work but to attend a wedding. He said he would be happy to go to the office Sunday if there were any reason. “I have nothing else to do,” he said.

His wife quickly corrected him: “Clean your apartment,” she said.

After months of negotiations, Democrats and Republicans remain miles apart on how to close the gap.

Democrats said the only humane way to do it is with at least $8 billion in tax hikes. They warned that a half-cent sales tax hike is needed to pay off a $10.7-billion loan that both parties want to make to close the current-year deficit.

Without that tax, the Democrats said, banks won’t lend the money.

Republicans countered by arguing that the bankers who have warned of cutting off the state are bluffing in an effort to do the bidding of Gov. Gray Davis. A tax increase, they said, is unnecessary and would harm the state’s economy.

Unable to bridge that impasse, legislators headed home.

Assemblyman John Longville (D-Rialto) shouted out a quick math lesson to reporters who asked why he was darting for a midafternoon plane to Ontario instead of staying in Sacramento to work on the budget.

“Forty-eight plus zero does not equal 54, no matter how much I wish it did,” said the lawmaker, referring to the six Republican votes Democrats need to pass a spending plan in the Assembly.

Even the governor’s budget chief, Department of Finance Director Steve Peace, left his post.

“I don’t have a vote,” he said.

Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher (R-Brea) sported a large blue button that read, “3 DAYS,” in blazing yellow, a reminder of the budget deadline, as she prepared to board a plane to leave the Capitol.

“If there is something to do on Sunday, I’m here,” she said.

Lawmakers are on call through the weekend. That means they are supposed to be able to get to the Capitol building within two hours of being summoned by Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City).

Yet many of them hopped on planes for Southern California -- suggesting the two-hour rule is loosely applied. Assembly members must check in at the building Sunday. But they have until 11 p.m. to do so.

Daucher and some other Republicans resented implications by Democrats that Brulte’s ultimatum is to blame for the budget negotiation breakdown. The real problem, they said, is a Democratic majority in the Legislature that passed record spending increases in recent years and now refuses to cut programs in hard times.

“Senator Brulte didn’t help me get elected, and I’m responsible only to my voters,” said Daucher, a member of a bipartisan group that has been working on budget solutions. “We don’t need revenue increases.”

Still, one Republican assemblyman expressed frustration with Brulte.

“There is no question Senator Brulte’s comments have had an effect on people,” said Keith Richman (R-Northridge).

Some lawmakers on their way out of town said that the June 15 deadline is not what really matters, and that lawmakers blow it almost every year with impunity. They said what is important is approving a spending plan by the time the new fiscal year starts July 1.

If a budget is not in place by then, vendors and state workers could stop getting paid in full. And some education money may not make it to schools by the beginning of the academic year if gridlock drags on.

As legislators were leaving town, the state was beginning to deliver bad news to thousands of workers. Because of the state’s precarious financial condition, officials said, more than 10,000 notices warning of possible layoffs will be issued in coming days to state workers.

The notices, which began going out this week, are tied to Davis’ request that each state department find a way to trim its personnel costs by 10%.

By law, the state must give employees 120 days’ notice before they are laid off. Marty Morgenstern, head of the Department of Personnel Administration, said talks with state employee unions about averting the layoffs through renegotiating contracts will intensify in coming days.

“If you delay, it gets more complicated, and sometimes more painful,” he said. “We’re hoping to get it done quickly.”

The state intends to send notices to 469 Highway Patrol officers out of a force of 5,500. Lance Corcoran of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. said he expects that the Davis administration will mail notices to 1,800 correctional officers and 45 sergeants.

“The intent is to get people ready and communicate to the [employee bargaining] units that this is real,” Corcoran said. The notices tell rank-and-file state workers that “should you choose not to bargain, this is the consequence.”

Corcoran said the administration and the union representing more than 20,000 prison workers are “miles apart.”

The timing of the notices came as a bit of a surprise.

“We had no clue that this was coming,” said Jon Hamm, chief executive of the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen. “We had no notification.”

The state Senate did not convene at all on Thursday, but in the Assembly, lawmakers did meet, if only briefly. They gathered for about an hour, during which time they sparred over the Father’s Day bill.

They did agree, however, to pass one piece of legislation. Under it, golf carts would be allowed to cross a state highway near the gated golf course community of Rancho Murrieta in southern Sacramento County.

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Times staff writers Dan Morain and Nancy Vogel contributed to this report.