SACRAMENTO - Imagine setting your family budget at the beginning of the year, but then you lose that part-time gig you took on to made ends meet. Now imagine being powerless to alter the spending plan you'd set in January without months of debate with your family.

That's the situation Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in this year.

California is one of only eight states in which the governor lacks the power to adjust the state's finances in the middle of the fiscal year. It's one of the many reasons the state faces a gap between its tax revenues and what it spends on state services of $14 billion.

San Joaquin will not escape the cuts Schwarzenegger has proposed: Schools would be paid less than they'd expected to receive last July. Local road projects won't get state aid for months, and property owners and motorists may pay an extra $11 to fund firefighters, police and clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Parks would close. Game wardens would be cut. So would prison guards. And thousands of non-violent inmates could be set free.

If the governor had powers to reduce spending midyear, the budget situation would still be grim, but it would not be quite so bad.

"The way things are now, when we see a budget problem developing during the year, we don't have any way to stop it," Schwarzenegger said in his State of the State speech recently. "We just keep that spending accelerator down to the floor. ... I mean, this is like a slow-motion crash; you can see it happening, but you can't do anything about it."

Lawmakers say the governor can deal with a midyear crisis the way he is now: by calling a special session of the Legislature. And giving Schwarzenegger this ability would mean that the Legislature would relinquish some of its power, something legislative leaders have no enthusiasm for.

Elizabeth Hill, the Legislature's non-partisan analyst, says the proposal "represents a serious diminution of the Legislature's authority." Budget staffers say they're not interested in entering into the painful negotiations that would precede any compromise until they deal with the $3.3 billion budget gap they must close by June 30.

Many states say a governor must make across-the-board cuts when revenue dips. Other state legislatures have set specific rules a governor must follow in emergencies, because spending matters are traditionally their job, not the governor's.

This is what Schwarzenegger wants.

"Under my plan, when we know that a deficit is developing during the year, instead of waiting and waiting and waiting, and seeing billions of dollars of deficit accumulate, this constitutional amendment would automatically trigger lower funding levels for state programs already agreed upon by the Legislature," he said last week.

Whatever system emerges, Schwarzenegger wants the power to make changes fast when the next money gap comes.

Why? Because the faster a governor can make the changes, the softer the cut. If you have to cut your annual household budget by 10 percent in January, it might mean fewer cable channels this year. But if you have to cut your household budget by that amount in November, it may mean you have to sell your car and skip an electric bill.

California governors did have midyear budget powers not too long ago. They gained the ability to alter spending midyear back in 1939; Gov. George Deukmejian lost the power in a fight with then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in 1983. The Legislature gave it back to Gov. Gray Davis for one year in 2003.

According to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, graduate student Sabrina Landreth, 14 states grant governors broad power to alter spending midyear, including populous states such as Illinois and New Jersey. Another 12 allow a governor to make uniform, across-the-board cuts, and 13 let the executive branch make specific cuts - this is what Schwarzenegger wants - including New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The only other large states that forbid the governor from making midyear cuts without legislative approval are Texas and Michigan.

Contact Capitol Bureau Chief Hank Shaw at (916) 441-4078 or sacto@recordnet.com.

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