Newsom’s Budget Revisal Proposes 10,000 Vacant State Jobs Being Cut, Cuts To 260 State Programs

During his May revised 2024-2025 state budget proposal announcement on Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom proposed cutting around 10,000 vacant state jobs, as well as spending to 260 state programs.

Back in January, Governor Newsom released his first 2024-2025 state budget proposal. In it, Newsom had the budget set at $291.5 billion with a$37.9 billion deficit attached after previous spending reductions were added in.

The $27.6 billion detailed in his proposal, plus $17.3 billion in proactive cuts recently agreed upon between the administration and the state Legislature, amount to a total of $44.9 billion total deficit. To help pay for it he had delayed spending, more borrowing, and tapping into the rainy day fund to make it all work. But no where there was any mention of job losses or big time cuts spread across hundreds of agencies.

But reality quickly kicked in, during the months that followed. The Legislative Analyst’s Office tacked the real state deficit initially at $58 billion. It soon climbed up to $68 billion, and by late February it was $73 billion. Only a few years before, the state had a $31 billion surplus. But numerous factors, including a weakening economy, a massive loss of the state population, businesses moving out of state, delayed tax changes, and other post-COVID changes sent California on a downward spiral.

Newsom’s office and other state leaders attempted to challenge the LAO’s findings, but the non-partisan analyst’s office numbers held. The LAO figure served as the true figure on how much the state was behind and just how drastically the state needed to change. This led to Newsom’s revised budget announcement on Friday. With Newsom’s announced deficit now higher than his estimate in January, and the LAO not yet saying how much higher the actual deficit is now based on Newsom’s slightly reduced $288.1 billion budget, massive cuts were in mind.

Newsom proposes to cut 10,000 vacant state jobs

Perhaps none were so sweeping as Newsom proposing to cut around 10,000 vacant state jobs and cutting spending to 260 state programs. Newsom didn’t linger on these major changes however, moving on to other key areas like climate change and crime, noting that “Even when revenues were booming, we were preparing for possible downturns by investing in reserves and paying down debts – that’s put us in a position to close budget gaps while protecting core services that Californians depend on. Without raising taxes on Californians, we’re delivering a balanced budget over two years that continues the progress we’ve fought so hard to achieve, from getting folks off the streets to addressing the climate crisis to keeping our communities safe.”

However, employment experts said that should the Legislature agree to the cuts, the 10,000 vacant jobs being cut would not be as dramatic as the Governor and his advisors made it seem.

“State-level job cuts in California is like whack-a-mole. You hit one down and somehow two pop back up,” explained job placement consultant Harriet Colon to the Globe on Friday. “That 10,000 seems like a lot, and it is. That’s salary, benefits, retirement. It does put a small dent in the deficit. But here’s the thing: new state jobs always pop up after cuts. Sometimes they are relisted shortly afterwards as a new position and not based on the cut one. New programs go hire people, so jobs come back that way. Emergency hiring comes into place sometimes thanks to the cuts gutting an area that suddenly need those people back.

“You can cut that rose bush down to the stems, but it is just going to bloom again. He also mentioned cuts in 260 state programs. That’s noble, but many more are getting funding boosts new. Many new programs are coming on-line. I mean, money is still being thrown at climate initiatives, and Newsom is fixing his weak points by boosting funding in areas like crime prevention too.

“10,000 jobs just cut out is a lot. But each year we see so many state jobs come up for people to help place. It comes back fast. If he wanted to truly cut back, he would need to have hard hiring limits across the board. A state job cap. Other states and countries do this when they are in a budget fix. But California won’t even touch that, and look, they still have a massive deficit whether you look at Newsom’s lowball numbers or the state projections.”

More on Newsom’s budget revisal is to come out soon, as the June 15th pass date is just over a month away.