California's controller will start paying many of the state's bills with IOUs as soon as Thursday after lawmakers failed to close the state's worsening budget deficit, adding a new measure of indignity to a state sinking deeper into dysfunction.
Lawmakers' failure to act on Tuesday, the end of the fiscal year, also widened California's deficit from what already had been a whopping $24.3 billion - more than a quarter of its general fund.
The failure to balance the state's main checkbook and the looming IOUs prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday to declare a fiscal state of emergency.
Under the declaration, state offices will be closed three days a month to conserve cash. If the Legislature fails to solve the deficit within 45 days, it cannot adjourn or act on other bills until the crisis is resolved.
The partial government shutdown also will lead to a third furlough day for 235,000 state employees, bringing their total pay cut this year to about 14 percent.
"California needed the Legislature to act boldly and with conviction. Their response was not a solution to California's budget problem but an invitation to actually a bigger financial crisis," Schwarzenegger told reporters Wednesday.
Comments