The Most Exciting Day of the Year

OMG. Elizabeth Hill's fabled Blue Book is out today. I rushed back from Obama in L.A. because the brick-sized, detailed analysis of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2007-08 budget would be waiting in my in-box holding secrets to be unlocked. Hill really delivers on Blue Book Day.

According to the busy bees at the Legislative Analyst's Office, the Schwarzenegger budget:

• Contains a $726 million deficit instead of a $2.1 billion surplus that Schwarzenegger predicted. Hill is less optimistic about tax revenues coming in because of a modest economy, and predicts higher spending for schools under Proposition 98.


• Should eliminate a tax credit that reimburses public school teachers for classroom supplies they purchased. It's not "cost-effective," Hill says.


• Unfairly increases fees for students at the University of California and Cal State universities by 7% and 10% respectively, when expenditures are increasing only 2.4%. But Hill agrees that the method of setting CSU and UC faculty salaries is based on a "misleading" methodology and should be changed.


• Spends too much money on building prisons, which could lead to "surplus capacity."


• Unfairly cuts $160 million to fix state parks, especially since California's parks already have a $900 million list of broken toilets, torn up trails and other problems.
  


• Needs to cut $19.8 million in overtime funding for the California Highway Patrol because the money no longer is needed for "tactical alerts" five years after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

 Read every page here before lunch.