The Golden State isn’t so golden right now.
Facing a budget shortfall of some $24.3 billion, California’s political class is digging deep to close it. The latest round of cuts, announced Monday by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are projected to save $1.3 billion, but sacrifice all vendor contracts signed by state agencies since March 1.
The sweeping measure leaves exempt any ongoing application of bond or stimulus funds, but applies across the board to everything else, including school books, which will be replaced next school-year with digital texts.
“Last year California spent $350m on textbooks and can no longer afford it,” noted the BBC.
The state, with 11 percent of its workforce unemployed, must close the budget gap or face running out of money in July.
“California’s state agencies and departments on average spend about $9 billion each year on goods and services,” reported Reuters. “In the current fiscal year, California entered into 36,498 contracts for goods and services from a variety of companies, including law firms, fuel and computer software providers and consultants of various kinds.”
Read on.
No comments:
Post a Comment