On Monday, June 27, Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed the legislative bill establishing the state budget for fiscal year 2016-17, which begins July 1.

“This solid budget makes responsible investments in California and sets aside billions of dollars to prepare for the next recession,” said Brown in a press release.

Total state spending is estimated to be $170.9 billion, of which $122.5 will come from the General Fund.

The balanced, on-time state budget doubles California’s Rainy Day Fund, pays down debt, increases school funding and boosts programs to combat poverty and homelessness.

In addition to the constitutionally required $1.3-billion deposit, the budget directs an extra $2 billion contribution into the Rainy Day Fund — bringing the state’s reserve fund to $6.7 billion, or 54 percent of the goal.

The budget also directs $1.75 billion to the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties, which also helps the state meet obligations in the face of declining revenue or unanticipated obligations, and pays down debts and liabilities by $1.3 billion from Proposition 2 funds.

The minimum funding guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges will grow to $71.9 billion this year, the highest level in state history and a $24.6 billion increase since 2011-12. Per-pupil K-12 funding is increased to $10,643, a $440 increase over last year and a $3,600 increase over 2011-12 levels.

New funding for the Local Control Funding Formula is $2.9 billion — bringing the formula’s implementation to 96 percent complete.

This year’s budget begins implementing the state’s new $15 per hour minimum wage by raising the statewide minimum wage to $10.50 per hour beginning Jan. 1, 2017. The budget also funds cost-of-living increases for Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment, the first boost since 2005.

The budget also repeals the “maximum family grant rule” in CalWORKs, which had denied support to children born to parents who were receiving aid. It also limits the state’s asset recovery from the estates of deceased Medi-Cal recipients.

The budget reflects $3.6 billion in state and federal funding and award authority for many affordable housing and homelessness programs, including increased funding for CalWORKs rapid rehousing and emergency homeless shelters.

Of this amount, the budget sets aside $400 million in the General Fund for allocation later in the legislative session for affordable housing programs. Also, legislation will authorize a $2 billion bond from a portion of future Proposition 63 mental health revenues to develop and administer homelessness and affordable housing programs for the mentally ill.

The budget includes funds for drought relief programs such as grants and emergency projects, as well as enhanced fire protection and tree removal grants. Also, Cal Fire received $12 million to begin replacing its helicopter fleet.

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) said in a statement, “The budget the governor just signed reflects the Assembly’s top priorities, including lifting families out of poverty, increasing access to early childhood education and making college more accessible for California students. This balanced, on-time budget — which also responsibly grows the state’s Rainy Day Fund — is the result of hundreds of hours of public hearings. That shows the budget process is working and our final product means California is in stronger fiscal shape than we have been for years.”

But two weeks ago, after the Legislature passed the budget bills, local state Sen. Jeff Stone said, “… The budget — which spends a record $122.5 billion from the General Fund the upcoming fiscal year — is an increase of $6.9 billion from last year. Even as the cost of state government continues to skyrocket, Gov. Brown is warning of dire days ahead for state revenue. His own administration is projecting an operating deficit of $4.1 billion in 2019-20, and that was before all of the additional spending legislative Democrats tacked on to this budget in recent days.”

Despite the popular concept that national politics, especially in the hallways of the U.S. Congress, is clogged with the goo of partisanship, the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources defies that image.

Last week, the committee, led by Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), held a hearing on draft legislation entitled the “Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management Act.” They quickly acknowledged the previous work of Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Both houses of Congress have been grappling with ways to adjust the funding for wildfire suppression costs  for several years. According to the U.S. Forest Service, funding to fight wildfires has grown from 16 percent of the agency’s total budget in 1995 to more than 50 percent in 2015.

As these costs grow and exceed appropriated levels, the Forest Service must borrow funds from other programs such as recreation, acquisition and other management programs.

During the hearing, Robert Bonnie, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, stated, “… in order to cover the 10-year average cost of suppression in FY 2017, more than $237 million will be reallocated away from accomplishing work such as forest restoration projects that would help reduce the risk of future fires.”

In her opening statement, Murkowski addressed this issue, saying, “This bipartisan discussion draft is an important first step toward ending the destructive practice of fire borrowing and restoring healthy, fire-resistant forests. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this critical effort as the legislative process advances.”

Senators from both sides joined her in advancing the draft legislation to the Senate floor. Cantwell, the ranking member of the Energy Committee, said in her opening statement, “I’m ready to call fire borrowing, ‘The Great Debate.’ This senator is agnostic as to how we solve it, but I do have a couple of principles in general.

“We cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. The Forest Service needs both the money to fight the fires and the money dedicated to do fuel reductions. So we have to produce a draft out of here that gives them the ability to do both,” Cantwell added.

The draft bill proposes Congress fund the agencies’ fire needs at the beginning of the fiscal year. The funding level would be enough to cover 100 percent of the average annual cost of firefighting over the past 10 years. This could be adjusted in catastrophic years. Disaster funding would be the source for these additional monies. Also, in low fire years, agencies could use the excess funding for prevention projects.

However, while bi-partisanship was visible in the hearing, Bonnie, the administration’s witness, was not completely satisfied with the proposed solution to fully fund the 10-year average cost and eliminate the need to borrow funds.

He argued that fully funding the fire costs within the Forest Service’s total budget would still reduce funding for other programs. This was based on the agency’s estimate that the 10-year average will continue to grow and could approximate two-thirds of the budget in 2025.

The draft bill also would authorize the use of drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, during wildfires. The intention of these tools is to improve the ability to scout fire lines, identify escape routes and track ground resources.

Another provision authorizes $500 million over seven years to provide assistance to at-risk communities to invest in proven programs that reduce wildfire risk, property loss and suppression costs.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors spent more than a day listening to department heads discuss their needs for the 2016-17 budget, which begins Friday, July 1.

County Executive Jay Orr has recommended that the board approve a tentative budget and then make final decisions at its July 26 session.

For several months, Orr and Paul McDonnell, the county’s chief finance officer, have been advising the board that projected revenues and budget requests are misaligned. They have urged the board to limit any budget increases because reserves will be needed to balance the budget.

As the county began to formulate the 2016-17 budget, agency requests were about $130 million more than the current-year (2015-16) budget. In an effort to protect the county’s finances, Orr has urged the board to keep funding level with this year, including for public-safety agencies.

Nevertheless, he organized the workshop for Monday, June 20, so that agency heads could make a case for more funding.

Opening the workshop, McDonnell told the board that revenue and spending recovery may be a couple of years in the future. Fiscal year 2017-18 would be the low point and reserves could fall, depending upon how much new spending is approved, to about $115 million compared to more than $200 million currently.

“Going forward, unless we see a dramatic growth in revenue, which no one is expecting at this point, we’re still going to maintain spending at this level in order to re-build reserves and reach a structural balance,” McDonnell recommended.

Supervisor Marion Ashley (5th District) is concerned for the county’s ability to provide services if an economic disruption occurred and reserves were too low. He had previously objected to reducing reserves below $200 million, but last week, Ashley recommended an alternative policy.

“I’m willing to come off my previous position of maintaining reserves at 25 percent of general-fund revenues, which is in the range of $187 to $200 million, provided reserves are maintained at $150 million or more,” he said at the beginning of the workshop. “And [I want] a budget plan put in place that would replenish the reserves back to the policy level within five years.”

Later, Supervisor Kevin Jeffries (1st District) expressed his concerns that the county would be able to hold spending levels for the time necessary to restore the reserves.

Both he and Ashley encouraged Orr and McDonnell to change the county’s budgeting process. “We need to strike out on a new course,” Ashley recommended. “The new goal should be a metric-driven system relying on performance measures in budgeting.”

While the supervisors and the county’s Executive Office focused on limiting spending and enduring several very tight budgets going forward, President John Benoit pointed out the county’s full-time staffing level has increased from 18,000 to 22,840 currently. “Wow, that’s huge,” he commented.

During the presentations, Sheriff Stan Sniff emphasized to the board that nearly 90 percent of the department’s $700-million budget, half of which is county funds, is for salaries and benefits, including the county overhead charges. “The sheriff has control of about 10 percent of the budget,” he said.

His budget proposal specifically excluded any costs for staffing for the East County Detention Center being built in Indio and to be completed next year.

“I don’t need a decision in this budget, but the ECDC will be ready sometime in 2018,” he advised the board.

He also recommended the board re-consider its decision to freeze hiring, which would limit the ratio of deputies per 1,000 residents in the unincorporated areas to 1.04.