Cuts to public schools are expected to force teacher layoffs,
more crowded classrooms
and scaled-back offerings in art, music and sports.
College students will pay hundreds of dollars more per year in fees,
course offerings will shrink and tens of thousands of prospective students
will be turned away.
Welfare, health care programs for low-income families
and in-home services for the disabled, elderly and frail
will be reduced.
Nearly 40,000 will have their in-home support services terminated.
The spending cuts amount to roughly 60 percent of a budget deficit
projected at $26 billion through June 2010.
The size of the shortfall is unprecedented,
representing nearly 30 percent of the state's $88 billion general fund.
Cities and counties, meanwhile,
have said they might to stop the state
from taking some $4 billion in local tax money.
Local governments throughout the state,
hit by declining property and sales taxes,
already are laying off law enforcement officers,
firefighters and other employees,
while trimming park maintenance, library, trash and other services.
…The loss of $1.1 billion from the budget package
[“A plan to take about $1 billion in transportation funding
from local governments
and a measure that would have allowed new oil drilling”]
means Schwarzenegger will use his veto authority
to make even deeper cuts to close the gap.
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