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Leak of the Week: Senate GOP leader’s budget e-mail to his caucus

Earlier today, Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth sent a letter to his caucus outlining the budget agreement. Among the highlights are his admission that the budget is full of "ugly gimmicks,"  a pat on the back to his caucus for eliminating numerous "poison pill" provisions on everything from salmon to "suction dredging," and  his insistance that Republicans keep Darrell Steinberg staffer Kip Lipper from drafting the language for the offshore-oil drilling deal.

Here was his breakdown:

(Note: bolding and some text in brackets added by Capitol Weekly for emphasis and clarity)

So here's what we got today in no particular order: (some of this might have been from the weekend, too, its starting to all run together.)

Huta:
An exemption for small cities that didn't get 1b money
A waiver for "hardship" for small counties from the take (although not clear how this will be written.)
The vote on huta will be a simple majority.

RDA take (Lowenthal take):

The low income housing proportion will revert to 75/25 instead of 70/30 after money is paid back.

Courts:
The ab 590 (zero rep votes) language on creating a new pilot program in the courts is out, but the fee on the cases is still in.

District of choice will have its sunset extended.

Textbook flexibility retained, with compromise language on the standards.

Exit exam:
Will continue the exemption on special ed kids until the board decides and alternative. (Neutral for us)

Tax enforcement:
Got the FIRM language removed
Got the license revocation language removed.
(That leaves only the BOE registration and the back up witholding in the tax enforcement area)

Parks will stay open without the vlf tax (through fund shifts)
50 may close, but got language that locals, feds, or non-profits will get chance to take over operation.

VOC, tsca, and ust fees were all taken out. Dept of industrial relations fee from february that was supposed to have reforms with it, gets a sunset.

Rural hospital enrollment centers will stay open.

Williamson act will remain, but get a 20 percent cut.

Industrial wage survey for central valley is back in (feb deal)

Career tech in the community colleges was going to get whacked disproportionately, and will get just the same cut as some of the other protected programs.

Integrated waste mgt board:
Consolidated with toxics and eliminated. But kept some of the stuff in resources, instead of epa, which is better.

Bureau of narcotics enforcement task forces: saved, through unallocated cut to doj

National guard educational benefit

Then: Some Overall Positive Issues:

No tax increases.

Almost (almost!) all the fees. ( including sra, the hospital, forensic fees, and the eri -the gov's tax on insurance policies)

Major major reforms to ihss, calworks, IT procurement, medi-cal, asset management, all colas eliminated, etc

RDA trigger on huta and 1a is in

Independent contractor witholding is out

NOL and unitary tax is out

T-ridge is in (we have to keep Kip [Lipper] from writing it so it's impossible [to stop])

Can't think of a poison pill out of the 45 pages that was put in in conference that hasn't been removed. (Salmon language, suction dredging, mlpa, etc)

No early release, unallocated cut to corrections. ("How" to be fought over later, with our own proposal)

We all know the negatives:
It's got some ugly gimmicks.
It's got possible local government borrowing, and the huta take (though both are mitigated, minimized, if not completely avoided through the RDA securitization)
It's got Lowenthal's rda take.
It's got the accelerated income tax witholding on individuals and estimated payers.

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