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January 10, 2005 GOVERNOR'S STATE BUDGET: EDUCATION SPENDING TO RECEIVE LARGEST INCREASE Today, Governor Schwarzenegger released his proposed budget for 2005-06.
The budget is balanced, does not raise taxes, boosts education funding, protects essential services, and increases state spending by 4.2 percent.
The Governor has always maintained that children should have first call on the treasury and his budget keeps that commitment by increasing general fund education spending by 7.1 percent.
"K-14 education funding will increase by $2.9 billion. Out of that is $2.4 billion for Prop. 98 alone," the Governor said at the press conference announcing his budget. "K-12 per pupil spending will grow by $362. Higher education spending will increase by more than $380 million."
Education funding is receiving the largest spending increase in the budget. Given California’s fiscal crisis, the budget was not everything the Governor hoped for, however.
"This budget is not everything that I want but the fact is, it's a budget forced on us by a broken system," the Governor said. "As I said in my State of the State, last year we stopped the bleeding. This year, we must heal the patient."
Governor Schwarzenegger inherited an unprecedented fiscal crisis when he took office. This year's budget is another installment in the Governor's plan to restore California's economic health. Without significant reform of the budget system, however, California’s deficits are likely to worsen.
"If we don’t get control of the autopilot spending, there will be deficits as far as the eye can see and we will risk every program for years to come,"the Governor said. Under the current budget system, the state will always spend more than it takes in, leading to continued and worsening deficits. In order to stop the cycle of deficits, the Governor is calling for essential reforms to the system.
The Governor’s Spending Control Proposal calls for:
- Stopping auto-pilot formulas from allowing spending to out-pace revenues.
- Requiring greater budget discipline.
The Governor has submitted the Spending Control Proposal to the Legislature which must now act on it.
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