From The Oakland Tribune

First, the good news for California schools: This year’s budget cuts don’t seem to be as deep as expected.

Now, the bad news: The state still isn’t paying all the money legally owed to education. The tricks used to stitch together the budget may well fail and require midyear cuts. And major chunks of the money — $7 billion — will arrive late.




It’s all part of the accounting sleight-of-hand the Legislature employed to break a stalemate and produce a budget early Friday.

One thing that’s not in dispute: The budget pushed tough decisions into the future, papering over most of the $19 billion deficit with clever accounting.

Read the full article here.