Without a state budget, the state’s three fiscal leaders announced on Monday their plan to defer payments to schools and counties one month earlier than previously planned.

The move to strengthen the state’s cash situation would defer $2.5 billion in payments to K-12 schools and $400 million owed to counties for welfare-to-work in late September.



The office of Controller John Chiang said it maintains its assessment from last Wednesday that it may need to rely on IOUs to pay bills within “two to four weeks.”

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Jean Hurst, a lobbyist for the California State Association of Counties said the delay in receiving $400 million in welfare dollars for counties will probably also result in counties having to borrow cash to make up the difference.

She said she doubted services would be affected, but said, “this is just another component that makes it more complicated. … (It’s) additional bailing wire and duct tape to put the budget together.”

Karen Mitchoff, spokesperson for the Contra Costa Employment and Human Services Department, said deferred payments from the state, “would be devastating to the delivery of services at the local level. Any deferment of payments to the county means that we have to scramble for money in order to pay our obligations.”