SACRAMENTO -- With California lawmakers facing a midnight Saturday deadline to pass a spending plan, they reportedly reached a key agreement on the most contentious part of next year's budget: K-12 education.
Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers have been arguing over just how much of a surplus the state would have following years of budget deficits. Brown wants to spend more money on disadvantaged students while keeping most of the cuts from prior years in tact, while the Legislature wanted to spend a few billion dollars more to help restore some of the social safety net cut during the recession.
The Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee, citing unnamed Capitol sources, reported Monday that political leaders had reached a deal that largely adopts Brown's smaller budget.
A joint legislative budget committee was set to meet, perhaps Monday, to endorse a budget framework, allowing each house to take up the spending plan later this week.
On one side is Brown, who is lobbying for a smaller budget: a $96 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1. His plan uses money from tax increases approved by voters in November to pump more money into schools, particularly districts with more disadvantaged students. But the governor wants to keep intact