Welcome to the Official CALPAC Website. Our third legislative measure is the the California State Budget Reform Act of 2003-2004 to the California Constitution. Authored by Andy Ramirez in 1996 as part of the California Legislative Reform Act, it was revived and slightly amended in response to California's continuing need to an overhaul of the State Budget Process. This measure will be shopped around to the Members of the State Legislature, and possibly submitted to the California Attorney General's Office with a request for title and summary after the Governor's Recall Election October 7, 2003.
Initiative Text
This initiative measure is submitted to the People of California in accordance with the provisions of Article II of Section 8 of the California State Constitution.
Our sincerest thanks to The Honorable Ray Haynes, CA State Senator, 36th District who served as our Honorary Chairman from 1995 to 1998 and to our advisor, Mr. Ron Prince, author of Prop 187 which was passed by California's voters in 1994.
This initiave measure expressely amends the Constitution by amending sections thereof; therefore, existing provisions proposed to be deleted are printed in strikeout type and new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate they are new.
PROPOSED TEXT
SECTION 1. TITLE
This initiative amendment shall be known and may be cited as the "California State Budget Reform Act of 2003-2004."
First—- that Section 12 of Article IV thereof is amended to read:
SEC. 12. (a) Within the first 10 days of each calendar year, the Governor shall submit to the Legislature, with an explanatory
message, a budget for the ensuing fiscal year containing itemized
statements for recommended state expenditures and estimated state
revenues. If recommended expenditures exceed estimated revenues, the
Governor shall recommend the sources from which the additional
revenues should be provided.
(b) The Governor and the Governor-elect may require a state
agency, officer or employee to furnish whatever information is deemed
necessary to prepare the budget.
(c) The budget shall be accompanied by a budget bill itemizing
recommended expenditures. The bill shall be introduced immediately
in each house by the persons chairing the committees that consider
appropriations. The Legislature shall pass the budget bill by
midnight on June 15 of each year. Until the budget bill has been
enacted, the Legislature shall not send to the Governor for
consideration any bill appropriating funds for expenditure during the
fiscal year for which the budget bill is to be enacted, except
emergency bills recommended by the Governor or appropriations for the
salaries and expenses of the Legislature.
(d) No bill except the budget bill may contain more than one item
of appropriation, and that for one certain, expressed purpose.
Appropriations from the General Fund of the State, except appropriations made in the budget bill and appropriations for the public schools, are void unless passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two thirds of the membership concurring.
(e) The Legislature may control the submission, approval, and
enforcement of budgets and the filing of claims for all state
agencies.
(f) The total of all expenditures that are authorized to be made from the General Fund of the State for any fiscal year by the budget bill and any other statute, combined with the total of all General Fund reserves that are authorized by the State for that fiscal year, and any deficit in the General Fund remaining from the preceding fiscal year, shall not exceed the total of all revenues and other resources, including reserves for prior years, that are estimated to be available to the State for General Fund purposes for that fiscal year. The total amount of those General Fund expenditures and reserves authorized by the budget bill and any other statute for that fiscal year, as of the date of enactment of the budget bill, together with any deficit in the General Fund remaining from the preceding fiscal year, and the total amount of revenues and other resources, including reserves, estimated to be available to the State for General Fund purposes for that fiscal year, shall be expressly set forth in the budget bill.
(g)(1) The budget bill shall include a budget adjustment plan, which shall consist of budget adjustments intended to eliminate any budget
imbalance greater than 10 percent of the total General Fund budget, as identified pursuant to paragraph (2). The budget adjustments shall make specific reductions in the appropriations made in the budget act and any other statute as may be necessary to eliminate General Fund budget imbalance. For purposes of this section, the “General Fund budget” for a fiscal year is the total of all expenditures that are authorized to be made from the General Fund of the State for that fiscal year by the budget act and any other statute, combined with the total of all General Fund reserves that are authorized by the State for that fiscal year.
(2) Upon the conclusion of each of the fiscal year quarters ending September 30, December 31, and March 31, the Legislative Analyst shall complete a projection of the General Fund balance for the entire fiscal year and shall report that projection to the Legislature and the Governor. Each report shall identify the extent, if any, by which the total of all expenditures that are authorized to be made from the General Fund of the State for that fiscal year by the budget act and any other statute, combined with the total of all General Fund reserves that are authorized by the State for that fiscal year, together with any deficit in the General Fund remaining from the preceding fiscal year, are projected to exceed the total of all revenues and other resources, including reserves for prior years, that are estimated to be available to the State for General Fund purposes for that fiscal year.
(3) The Legislature shall enact for each fiscal year one or more bills that, in the aggregate, both identify the conditions under which the Governor shall be required for that fiscal year to implement the budget adjustment plan and, in the event of the occurrence of those conditions, make any changes in law that are necessary to the implementation of that plan. The budget adjustment plan for any fiscal year shall not become operative prior to the operative date of the bill or bills enacted for that fiscal year pursuant to this paragraph.
(4) The bill or bills enacted for any fiscal year pursuant to paragraph (3) shall go into effect immediately upon enactment, and, notwithstanding subdivision (d), are exempt from the two-thirds vote requirement set forth in that subdivision, but are not exempt from the two-thirds vote requirement set forth in Section 3 of Article XIII A.
(h) A statute enacting a budget shall go into effect immediately upon its enactment, but shall not become operative prior to the operative date of the bill or bills enacted for that fiscal year pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (g).
(i) Notwithstanding Sections 4 and 8 of Article III and Section IV of this article, in any year in which the budget is not enacted by midnight on June 30, the Governor and each Member of the Legislature shall forfeit any salary or reimbursement for travel and living expenses for the period from midnight on June 30 until the day preceding the date the budget bill is enacted. No forfeited salary or travel and living expenses shall be paid retroactively.
Second—- that Section 1.2 is added to Article XVI to read:
SEC 1.2 Except as to any indebtedness approved by the voters pursuant to Section 1, the Legislature shall not in any manner create in any fiscal year any debt or debts, or liability or liabilities, unless the debt or debts, or liabilities or liabilities, are repaid during that same fiscal year. For purposes of this section, “debt or debts, or liability or liabilities” includes an obligation for which an appropriation is made from anticipated funds, but does not include borrowing between state funds.
Third—- that the amendments made by this measure to Section 12 of Article IV of the California Constitution shall become operative on January 1 next following the election at which those amendments are approved by the electors.
Fourth-- AMENDMENT AND SEVERABILITY
The amendments contained in this measure may not be amended by the Legislature except to further its purposes by Constitutional Amendment passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring, and than the Constitutional Amendment shall become effective only when and after being approved by the voters and, or, through the use of initiative.
In the event that any portion of this amendment or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, that invalidity shall not effect any other provision or application of the initiative, which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and to that end the provisions of this amendment are severable.
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