It was, to borrow the phrase, a California budget season that ended not with a bang but a whimper.
Gov. Jerry Brown's signature on a $156.357 billion state spending plan, ten days before the new fiscal year begins, marks the end to one of the least combative budget seasons in modern California history. Brown signed the budget in San Diego Friday morning, proclaiming it a sensible blueprint for the road ahead.
"This on-time budget provides for today and saves for the future," said Brown, who traveled to the home city of newly sworn-in Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) to put pen to paper in the signing of SB 852.
The budget (PDF) sets a new record for spending in the state's primary general fund, but it's less spending than proposed by Democratic leaders in the Legislature. It boosts K-14 school spending by $10 billion, thanks to improved tax revenues. And it represents a negotiated truce between legislators and Brown on several issues, from expanding preschool and welfare assistance for low-income families to earmarking a portion of revenues from the auction of carbon emission credits for the state's beleaguered high speed rail project.
The high speed rail proposal did lead to some debate, as did a late proposal to impose new caps on the cash reserves held by local school districts. But in the end, this was a budget plan that found neither the Legislature nor the governor in a mood for a political fight. The state's recovering tax revenues made it easy to avoid those kinds of fights; the fact that it's an election year probably made it a necessity.