Features

SACRAMENTO – A $101 billion state budget failed to pass the state Assembly for the fourth time as Republicans on Saturday continued their opposition to a sales tax hike. 

Following hours of fiery debate on the Assembly floor, Democrats fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the budget. But a Republican opposition, unanimous until now, revealed its first cracks with two members voting with Democrats. 

Republicans Dave Kelley of Palm Desert and Anthony Pescetti of Sacramento abandoned their party and voted for the budget. 

Democrats on Saturday sweetened the budget package to lure defectors with nearly $80 million in special incentives for rural counties. 

Those extras included 36 individual $500,000 grants for police and sheriff departments and $8 million for Klamath River Basin farmers facing drought along the California-Oregon border. They also would waive sales taxes on farm tractors and diesel fuel used in agriculture. 

Modoc County Sheriff Bruce Mix, one of eight sheriffs who came to the Capitol to plead for a budget, said his $1.5 million a year operation has no 24-hour patrols or detectives. 

“Five hundred thousand to me is extremely meaningful,” he said during a news conference held by Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. 

Republican leaders called the rural incentives “bribes” and continued to paint the budget as out-of-control government spending. 

“We have a budget that’s growing at twice the rate of inflation and it’s growing on the backs of taxpayers,” said Assemblyman George Runner, R-Lancaster. Added Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, “What is it about no new taxes that you don’t understand?” 

Hertzberg responded that this year’s budget is $1.2 billion less than last year. 

“We have shrunk government,” he said. 

The major sticking point to the state budget, now more than two weeks overdue, is an automatic quarter-cent sales tax increase starting in January. The tax, which kicks in when revenues slow and budget reserves fall below 4 percent, will add nearly $2 billion to the state treasury during the next two years. 

Republicans want to scrap the tax, which passed in 1991 during the administration of Gov. Pete Wilson with Republican support. Democrats say it’s necessary to avoid budget cuts in health, law enforcement and schools. 

“This state is reeling from energy costs,” said Assemblyman Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco. “This state and many other states are moving into downturns and perhaps recession.” 

The state Friday stopped paying 2,000 legislative employees for lack of a state budget. Businesses that deal with the state will start going unpaid this Monday. 

The Senate, one vote shy of a two-thirds majority for the budget, is on a weekend recess and returns to the Capitol on Monday.