When the 2011-12 California budget was passed last June, it included a provision that would direct the Governor to make additional cuts across various categories if the revenue projections proved too optimistic (as determined by the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) and the Director of Finance at the end of the year). Although the LAO estimated that revenue for '11-'12 would be almost $4 billion below the June estimate, the Director of Finance estimated in a press conference on December 13, 2011 that the revenue shortfall would be slightly over $2 billion, triggering just under $1 billion of further cuts. This includes all level 1 cuts ($600 million) and some of the level 2 cuts ($400 million). This visualization place the cuts in context of current budgets for each affected program and effects on actual services delivered. Although the cuts may seem small in absolute dollars, they represent large portions of some programs.
(Note: these displays show the combined 'trigger 1' and 'trigger 2' cuts, according to the estimates of December 13, 2011).
Instructions: Select the major budget category in the top chart by clicking on the category. This will show the budget cuts for its subcategories as a percent of its allocation in the bottom chart.
Sources: Trigger cut numbers are taken from the LAO November Fiscal Outlook report and cross-referenced against the actual language of the budget bills, then updated based on the Governor's December 13, 2011 press conference.
(1) The November LAO report is located at http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2011/bud/fiscal_outlook/fiscal_outlook_2011.pdf.
(2) The budget appropriations data is located on the ebudget.ca.gov site (http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/Enacted/agencies.html and
http://2010-11.archives.ebudget.ca.gov/Enacted/agencies.html). Numbers represent all state funding minus general bond funding.
(3) The language of the budget bills (mainly AB 121 and SB 73) can be found at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_121_bill_20110630_chaptered.pdf and http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0051-0100/sb_73_bill_20110630_chaptered.pdf.
(4) Governor Jerry Brown's December 13, 2011 press conference concerning the budget triggers can be viewed at the Office of the Governor website at http://gov.ca.gov/video.php?id=47.
CACS is not responsible for the accuracy of data received from outside sources. Please email us at info@cacs.org if you believe you have found an error in the visualization.
