A.M. Splash: Most State Employee Unions Agree to Pay Cut; No Tuition Increases in Budget If Taxes Pass

As a vote nears on the final details of a 2012-13 budget, Gov. Jerry Brown has persuaded leaders of the state's largest public employee union to agree to a key portion of his plan to reduce state spending, a nearly 5 percent pay cut...The budget plan now includes a guarantee that tuition at the University of California and California State University systems won't increase this year or next year...Holding tuition flat, which will cost the state $125 million for each system, is contingent on voter approval of Brown's November ballot measure to raise taxes.

San Francisco schools will get about $567 million to educate the city's 56,000 students this next academic year. It won't be enough. District officials say they'll need $30 million more than they'll get from local, state and federal sources to cover the $597 million needed for payroll, student programs and administrative costs.

The City Council will be asked tonight to vote on a measure that effectively sends Stockton into bankruptcy, making it the nation's largest municipality to have done so.

The state's top financial officer has sided with the city of San Jose and ordered Santa Clara County officials to cough up $86.5 million in property taxes they've delayed handing over to the city. It's part of a dispute that erupted earlier this month between the county's auditor-controller and the city over who gets paid first with money that once funded the city's redevelopment agency.

Advocates on Monday made a last ditch effort to persuade Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders to back down from a plan to eliminate Healthy Families, the medical insurance program that serves children from low-income working families. Axing the program to save tens of millions of dollars is a key provision in the budget that Brown and Democrats worked out last week as part of an agreement that spared more painful cuts to safety net programs for the poor. More than 900,000 children would be required to change to the Medi-Cal system over the next year and a half, forcing them to find new doctors in what critics say is an already overwhelmed system.

Following a sudden $30 million loss of tax funds, the San Francisco 49ers and Santa Clara leaders said Monday they would not slow stadium construction even as they scrambled to figure out how the cut could affect the rest of the money needed to build the project. An oversight board consisting of officials from around Santa Clara County on Friday used a new state law to claim the redevelopment funds, which voters had earmarked for the stadium, should be used on things like education and not a pro sports stadium.

...The average price in California for regular gasoline dropped 14.2 cents from the previous week, the California Energy Commission reported Monday; the price was $3.89 a gallon, down from $4.03 last week. It's the sixth straight week gas prices have fallen.

A federally endangered fin whale washed up dead on a West Marin beach after apparently being struck by a ship, officials said Monday. The 47-foot-long whale was first spotted Thursday in a remote area south of Wildcat Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Biologists attempted to try to identify the animal, but heavy surf and the whale's position made it too difficult.