County to Arnold: Don’t tread on us

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s latest budget proposal, which would deliver another round of deep cuts to social welfare and health programs, drew the ire of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. First District Supervisor Gloria Molina, for one, called the proposed cuts “terrifying.”

The supervisors pledged cooperation with the governor and Legislature on the 2010-11 state budget to ease the pain as much as possible. But they were clear in calling on Sacramento to begin making systematic fixes to the budget process to avoid shifting pain and problems to county residents.

“We now have a $20 billion deficit that is affecting every city, county and school in the state,” Fifth District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich noted during the board’s weekly meeting. He said the “rainy-day fund” that the supervisors created to help weather fiscal emergencies isn’t big enough to “withstand a tsunami that is coming from Sacramento.”

Third District Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky chided Schwarzenegger for shifting blame to California’s congressional delegation during the governor’s Sunday appearance on “Meet the Press.” “This is not Washington’s fault,” Yaroslavsky said. “The state got itself into its own mess.”

Calling the budget crisis “gargantuan,” Second District Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas blamed the two-thirds rule, the state’s constitutional requirement that all budget and tax measures must pass by a super-majority. “Unless that’s changed, I’m sorry to say, we will be here year after year in a similar predicament,” Ridley-Thomas said.

Fourth District Supervisor Don Knabe said that by slashing funds to mandated programs partially funded by federal matching funds, California would be throwing away federal money for services the county is required by law to provide. He called the situation “extremely frustrating,”

For Zev’s remarks, watch the video below.