PolitiCal Roundup: Budget blues all over, state senator receiving racist threats

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-- Quiet morning for the budget battle in Sacramento, but local agencies around California continue to be roiled by cutbacks. Below, a sampling of the local drama:

In Merced: A third of sworn police officers are laid off.

In San Francisco: Overtime for city employees is $40 million over budget, in part because the fire department has shrunk and is using overtime to cover the same jobs with fewer people, but also because of last year’s big Giants season.

In Fresno, a scrap between the county and the school district over mental healthcare for students breaks out after the state cuts off all funding. The county says it will not longer pay; the schools say they can’t.

In Kern County, public employees and the county have not reached a labor agreement despite nearly a year of negotiations. In a twist, public employees there are bucking the trend of union concessions. They charge the financial crisis is ‘made up’ and that pension-cutting is just a fad.

In the Indio area, the Coachella Valley Unified School District has sent layoff warnings to every principal and vice principal in the district.

-- In other news, state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has been receiving racist faxes from someone. There have been nooses, depictions of President Obama as a monkey and ugly German threats.