(SACRAMENTO, CA)  Today, Senate Republicans released the terms of a budget they could support for the State of California.  It includes approximately $1 billion in additional spending reductions beyond what was approved by the State Assembly.

The following is a statement by Assemblymember Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), Chair of the Assembly Democratic Caucus:

“Californians deserve better than this.  Republicans created a budget impasse by demanding an additional $2 billion in cuts but refusing to say where they would cut!  Why wouldn’t they speak up earlier?  And, now it turns out that their proposed cuts are just old, tired ideas that have been previously debated and previously rejected.  It’s disappointing that after delaying the state’s budget for weeks, they couldn’t come up with anything new, creative or constructive.  Californians don’t want a budget that is balanced on the backs of children living in poverty, that ignores the will of the voters, and breaks out the cookie cutter to solve complicated problems.”

Available online at http://republican.sen.ca.gov/pubs/070725_BudgetReductions.pdf, key provisions of the Senate Republicans’ budget proposal include:

• $324 million in cuts from CalWORKS that eliminate safety net cash grants that keep children whose parents do not meet work requirements from becoming homeless;
• $120 million in cuts from funding Proposition 36, which transfers costs of drug treatment programs to local government;
• $50 million in cuts to government by eliminating 6,000 vacant state jobs; and
• $6 million in cuts from the University of California to eliminate the Institute for Labor and Employment.