Governor Jerry Brown called for additional spending cuts to health and welfare programs, as well as a 5 percent furlough for state workers, to help erase a budget deficit that has grown to $15.7 billion. The Governor relies on a patchwork of solutions to bridge the gap in a $91.4 billion general fund spending plan, including deeper cuts, his November tax initiative and taking money from a multi-state mortgage abuse settlement with banks.

Among the most unusual ideas: asking state employees to work four days a week for a total of 38 hours instead of 40, or 9.5-hour shifts. Brown suggested in the budget that the proposal would save operational costs by shutting down offices once a week in addition to 5 percent of salary. The proposal would likely have to be bargained with labor unions since Democratic lawmakers will not impose the cuts unilaterally. The Governor also proposed giving UC $38 million less than he did earlier this year. Both proposals make it more likely that UC will raise tuition in 2012-13 after UC officials said last week they needed an additional $125 million to avoid a 6 percent hike on students.

The Governor proposed additional cuts to Cal Grants for low-income students that would apply a stricter means test and impose new graduation requirements on schools. Among the new health and welfare cuts: Brown is asking for a 7 percent cut in hours for In-Home Supportive Services recipients, as well as reduced payments to hospitals and nursing homes serving Medi-Cal patients. The Governor also wants to cut $544 million from the state's trial courts, $300 million from their reserves and $240 million by delaying court construction. The remaining $4 million would come from hiking employee retirement contributions from 5 percent to 8 percent.

In addition, the Governor has proposed an additional unallocated cut of $2.5 million to CDFA.

Watch the petals fly as Floral Designers from all over the county compete for the top prizes and cash.   You could be one of the winners and qualify for the   Cal State Floral "Top Ten" Competition.
Open to ALL Floral Designers

A Designers Choice and a Surprise Package design included Special Presentations during the Judging

Internationally acclaimed Designer, Teacher and Author   Ren� Van Rems AIFD   Professor, Designer and Floral Commentator   Robert L. Gordon, AIFD, PFCI

1st Place: $300 2nd Place: $150 3rd Place: $75

Entry Fee: $25

Deadline for entry forms and entry fees Friday May 18th

For information visit our website

at www.sdfair.com/entry or call (858) 792-4273

Enter today, a limited number of entries can be accepted

A bill that would reform the ex parte process at the state and regional water boards took one more step towards enactment by passing the Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB 2063 (Alejo) would replace the existing prohibition on ex parte communications with a system that parallels the system used by the California Coastal Commission. Under that process, stakeholders would be able to meet with board members but the meetings and the topics would need to be disclosed by the board member at the next meeting. The Association has been actively engaged in the bill and providing testimony.

A measure to reform the State Responsibility Areas (SRA) fire prevention "fee" was approved by the Assembly Natural Resource Committee on a 5 to 0 vote. AB 2474 (Wesley Chesbro, D-Eureka) was recently amended to include an urgency clause so it is exempt from the April 27th policy committee deadline for fiscal bills. Committee Chair Chesbro reminded the committee that he supported AB 1506 (Kevin Jeffries, R-Riverside) that would provide an outright repeal of the fees because he believes they are unfair to homeowners in the SRA that already pay for fire protection at the local level. He added that his AB 2474 is a more targeted approach that would simply allow homeowners to deduct the full amount of the local fire protection taxes from the newly imposed state SRA fee. As noted previously, the fire prevention "fee" was imposed with a simple majority vote and it most certainly will be challenged as an illegal tax because there is a little or no nexus between the charge imposed and any proportional landowner

The House Energy & Commerce Committee this week approved a bill that will create a new task force to study the overall impact of three pending EPA rules, but not before Democrats on the committee called for more study of the bill's impact. The three rules which would be required to be studied by the task force include delay of EPA's proposal on new emissions and fuel standards and the agency's ozone air quality standards. The bill would overturn a Supreme Court decision upholding EPA's need to only consider health concerns when promulgating air quality rules, with the agency now having to consider economic costs and feasibility of its proposed air rules. Republicans said the new bill is necessary because the Supreme Court decision, while upholding EPA authority, said the agency's authority on air quality regulations is ambiguous.

House, Senate Spar Over Crop Producer Protections - In a he-said/she-said exchange this week, the chair of the House Agriculture Committee's subcommittee on general farm commodities and risk management took shots at the Senate Agriculture Committee's approved 2012 Farm Bill, while the Senate ag panel chair defended her bill and said she was confident differences with the House can be overcome. Rep. Mike Conaway (R, TX), at his subcommittee's hearing this week on the crop protection and insurance components of omnibus farm programs, said the Senate crop title "creates a complicated new program so lopsided it actually locks in profits for some while denying any safety net at all to others...this leads me to conclude that what the Senate has before it cannot be called a farm bill at all," escalating the North versus South crop war over direct payments and crop insurance first exposed in the Senate's deliberations. While the Conaway subcommittee was hearing witnesses from just about every crop group in the country, as well as the crop insurance industry, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI), chair of the Senate committee, held a conference call with reporters to defend her bill and announce she and committee ranking member Sen. Pat Roberts (R, KS) are ready to move their bill to the floor. "This is real reform," she said, echoing Roberts' comments from the week before, "...it is a fair bill for every crop. We know there are some differences... (but) I'm confident we can put this together."

Lucas, Peterson Say Target Prices Will be Part of House Bill -- Saying Congress should write a Farm Bill "for the bad times," and in a nod to regional and crop differences that have emerged as the biggest stumbling block to getting a Farm Bill completed this year, House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R, OK) committed this week to some form of target price/countercyclical payment scheme to address the needs of southern cotton, rice, and peanut producers, and asked all national crop production groups to bring him data to support their recommended target price. Lucas is not alone, as House ag panel ranking member Rep. Collin Peterson (D, MN) endorsed retaining crop target prices to backstop federal crop insurance. While southern producers, armed with new studies out of universities in Texas and Arkansas, argued the draft bill hammered together last fall by the respective chamber ag committees to meet deficit reduction targets set by Congress actually treats southerners better than the Senate Ag Committee's bill, they pointed out that while they lost direct payments as part of an income safety net, retention of target prices at least factored in production costs as part of income protection. At the same time, southerners said the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) shallow loss program - covering 11-21% of a producer's loss with the rest covered by crop insurance - doesn't work for southern crops, particularly rice, since some crops are irrigated and prices don't fluctuate enough to trigger crop insurance payments. Lucas said ARC will only work well when prices are high, and that long periods of low prices demand a target price system. The ag panel chair, hit with criticism that target prices could skew planting decisions, dismissed the notion and pointed to recent shifts in corn acreage to account for ethanol production. It's the market price that drives planting decisions, not target prices, he said.

44 Senators Urge Reid to Bring Up Farm Bill this Year -- A letter from 44 Senators from both sides of the aisle urging quick Senate floor action on the Senate Agriculture Committee's approved 2012 Farm Bill was delivered this week to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY). The letter cites the ag panel's $23-billion savings - though some say the actual savings is much lower - and the bill's "strengthening and preserving farm risk management programs" - as the major reasons for quick Senate action. While Reid told Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D, MI), chair of the ag committee, he'd make floor time available if she was able to get a committee bill approved "with strong bipartisan support," he's been silent on when floor time might be scheduled. Insiders say Reid is looking at bringing up the bill in early June after Congress' Memorial Day recess, about the same time House Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R, OK) says his committee will begin markup of its bill.

Roberts Moves to Educate Senators Taking Aim at Crop Insurance Cuts - Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Sen. Pat Roberts (R, KS) this week moved to educate colleagues who are advocating further budget cuts to federally subsidized crop insurance, a program that's emerged as the backbone of both House and Senate 2012 Farm Bill rewrites. The unlikely alliance of Sen. Tom Coburn (R, OK) and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D, IL) in calling for the insurance subsidy cuts makes Roberts' job tougher. He said he'd talked with Coburn this week about Coburn's notion of cutting crop insurance premium subsidies and administrative buy-downs to insurance companies "point(ing) out the value of crop insurance" and how it forestalls disaster payments in tough times. Coburn and Durbin base their call for "efficiencies and controlled costs" on a March Government Accountability Office (GAO) report Coburn asked for that says USDA could have saved over $1 billion 2011 by capping insurance premium subsidies at $40,000 per person per year. GAO said without a cap, premium subsidies will cost the federal government $8.9 billion per fiscal year in 2013-2022. Roberts said, "Coburn is following the recommendations of GAO, any member of which I don't think has been west of the Mississippi."

A whistleblower protection committee will be established by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), according to an announcement this week by the agency. "The new Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee will help our agency sustain an open dialogue with stakeholders and experts, and will promote the transparency and accountability that the cornerstones of this Administration," the department said. The purpose of the panel is to advise, consult and make recommendations to OSHA on how to "improve efficiency, effectiveness and transparency" in the agency's whistleblower protection program. The committee will focus on advising OSHA on development and implementation of improved customer service models, improvements in investigation and enforcement processes, training and regulations on OSHA investigations.