Word: budget
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Booker staunchly defends the salaries. "I stand by any personnel decision I've made," he says. He points to a reduction of Newark's budget deficit, from $180 million to $73 million, according to the city, as a healthy return on his talent investments. A more professional and efficient city hall has helped Newark collect an extra $10 million in property taxes this year in spite of the foreclosure crisis. Further, Booker has proposed a 2% pay cut for all non-police and non-firefighter employees making more than $100,000 and is pushing for mandatory furloughs...
California's system of governance seems designed to thwart any solution its lawmakers propose. With a two-thirds majority required to raise taxes or pass a budget, 40% of public funds earmarked for public schools and no method of overriding voter initiatives, California seems stymied by a complex puzzle that no one can solve...
California is a state in crisis. Negotiations to resolve its $26.3 billion budget deficit are weeks behind deadline, more than $470 million worth of IOUs are clogging government ledgers and its state bonds are trading at near junk status. It's been a long, slow tumble from the Golden State's glamorous peak in the 1960s--when Governor Pat Brown built an efficient network of freeways and thriving, affordable public universities--to today's insolvent government beset by an unwieldy constitution and decades of mistakes...
California employs a unique combination of representative and direct democracy. A 1933 provision requires a two-thirds majority in both houses to pass a budget, a rule shared only by Rhode Island and Arkansas. Tax increases must pass by the same percentage--a stipulation adopted by just 12 other states. California also uses referendums, recalls and voter initiatives more frequently than any other state. This tangled structure often combines to confound legislators seeking changes that would relieve the state's woes...
...State Budget Deficits Seven U.S. states still haven't solved their budget gaps...