California’s budget crisis forces cuts in small towns

REDDING, Calif. | Tim Amen pushes open the front door of the Shasta County jailhouse and steps into the sunshine, having served about half of his 48-hour sentence for drunken driving.

“It’s pretty nice I got out a day early but you know, no big deal, I guess,” he says as he beat a quick getaway down the sidewalk.

California’s budget crisis just dealt him a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, yet one more example of how a combination of fiscal stalemate, dysfunctional politics, a plunging credit rating and double-digit unemployment have left the Golden State looking pretty tarnished these days.

Mr. Amen is one of about 60 prisoners cut loose early since Sheriff Tom Bosenko started reducing the jail population about a week ago to save money — part of deep cuts in jobs and services under way in cities and counties across the state.

An entire floor of the three-story jailhouse will stand vacant, shrinking capacity from 381 inmates to about 230 in Shasta County, a rural community of about 180,000 people in the northern reaches of the Sacramento Valley.

Nearly 100 more inmates will be cut loose early by the time the third floor is completely emptied. The smaller capacity will then trigger ongoing early releases, freeing people locked up for burglary, theft, drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses.

Redding is by no means alone.

Local governments across California are laying off office staff and public-works crews, closing parks and playgrounds, reducing hours at libraries and calling off time-honored parades and festivals in a desperate drive to balance the books.

“It is going to be apparent to the public that we can’t provide services they are used to,” said Pamela Thompson, city attorney for the town of San Bruno, a bedroom community about 10 miles south of San Francisco.

Residents of San Bruno have been told to expect fewer non-emergency police and fire services, longer lines at city offices and dirtier city parks.

And the state’s fiscal woes are only expected to worsen, with the Obama administration signaling last week that a federal bailout was not in the cards.

“It’s obviously not an easy time for the state of California,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Tuesday. “We’ll continue to monitor the challenges that they have, but this budgetary problem, unfortunately, is one that they’re going to have to solve.”

California has the largest state economy in the country and also boasts the worst credit rating among the 50 states. State Controller John Chiang in May put the Golden State’s fiscal year 2009 budget deficit at $24.3 billion. A recent study by the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities forecast that, given the state’s continued economic decline, the total budget gap for the year could reach nearly $36 billion — 35.5 percent of the state’s general fund.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers from both parties remain at loggerheads. A deadline for a budget deal came and went Monday without an agreement.

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