Lake Elsinore Lawmaker At Local Budget Hearing Today

Discussion of state budgets cuts moves to Southern California today as a 1:30 p.m. state Senate Budget Committee hearing at Cal Poly Pomona gets underway.

The hearing will be the only one in Southern California this fiscal year.

Attending the hearing will be Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), who serves as the committee’s vice chair; Sen. Bill Emmerson (R-Hemet), whose 37th district also includes Lake Elsinore; Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto); Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach); and Sen. Michael Rubio (D-Bakersfield) will attend the hearing. Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, whose district includes Cal Poly, also plans to be there. 

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, will chair the hearing, which is open to the public. The senators plan to discuss the $11 billion in cuts already approved, as well as ways to cut the remaining $16 billion to balance the budget by July 1.

Huff, who represents the 29th district, and Emerson issued a joint statement Thursday critical of the location of the hearing.

The lawmakers referred to the meeting at the public university, which expects to see substantial funding cuts, as a "'budget road show' designed to scare Californians into believing that if they don’t support increased taxes they will adopt an all-cuts budget that devastates schools and public safety.” 

Senate Republicans have called for pension, regulatory and other reforms as a way to help bridge the state’s $26 billion budget gap.

"Certainly, these budget hearings can take place in Sacramento and be televised as they normally are,” the statement read. “If Democrats feel the need to threaten school children and public safety they can do it without spending taxpayer funds for travel around the state that even the governor seems to believe is wasteful.”

In a recent video message to the campus, Cal Poly Pomona President J. Michael Ortiz said that the state’s Legislative Analyst Office, which gives budget suggestions to the governor, has recommended $1.1 billion in cuts to the CSU.  That would equate to around $55 million in cuts for Cal Poly Pomona.

The Board of Trustees previously had approved a 10 percent fee hike for 2011-12 and it is undetermined if they would consider another increase, Ortiz said.

“Nonetheless, the severity of this reduction requires that we look at two primary areas – student enrollment and the personnel needed to serve them,” Ortiz said.  “As I have repeatedly said, everything is on the table.”

The hearing at Cal Poly comes just two weeks after students protested the cuts, with a march through campus and a rally in front of the administration building.

Mt. San Antonio College students also recently protested proposed cuts to community colleges.  The governor’s budget proposal calls for a $400 million decrease in Proposition 98 general fund spending for community colleges and pushes for an increase in student fees to $36 per unit from $26. 

Mt. San Antonio College President John S. Nixon recently established an advisory committee tasked with coming up with a plan to cut $9 to $16 million, as a result of the proposed cuts.