Calif. governor, lawmakers cancel budget meeting
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders abruptly canceled their scheduled budget talks Tuesday, hours after Schwarzenegger's press secretary blamed "union bosses" for blocking pension reforms the governor insists are needed to solve the state's long-term financial problems.
Closed-door negotiations aimed at breaking the state's record-long budget impasse had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon until the governor's office released a message saying that no such meeting would take place.
Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Aaron McLear, and spokesmen for Democratic and Republican leaders insisted negotiations were still continuing, but at the staff level. The leaders will reconvene once the staff works through some of the details, they said.
"We're still moving toward the goal line," said Alicia Trost, spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento.
Earlier in the day, McLear said unions were stalling the budget negotiations by trying to block a rollback of pension benefits. It is one of the reforms Schwarzenegger has demanded in exchange for his signature on a budget bill that would close the state's $19 billion deficit.
Steinberg said Monday that Democrats want the Republican governor to win concessions from public employee unions through collective bargaining before they consider his proposals for legislative changes to the pension system.
McLear said legislators should instead act on their own to repeal an 11-year-old law that increased public employee benefits.
"As long as the public employee union bosses are dictating the terms of the budget, we will remain at impasse," McLear said in an interview. "The will hasn't been there to stand up to the public employee unions."
The state has been without a budget since the fiscal year began July 1, meaning schools, counties and thousands of state contractors are not getting paid.
Without a budget, state Controller John Chiang has said a lack of money may force the state to begin issuing IOUs early next month, as it did last year for just the second time since the Great Depression.
