I also recently had the opportunity to sit down with Jaime Garza on Time Warner’s “Local Edition” program to once again talk about the role of community based organizations in light of state budget cuts. There are many holes in state provided services that these community based organizations can fill.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down again with Steve Swatt on the Comcast Newsmakers program to discuss how I believe that in the face of this terrible economy and our state budget crisis, there are many community-based organizations that can fill the gap and provide many of the services that most previously looked to the state to provide. Contrary to the beliefs of many of my colleagues in the Assembly, Government is not the only answer when it comes to providing services. The STRIDE Center in the Bay Area is once such organization and I discuss what they do in the video.

Democrats in the Legislature have obtained a legal opinion that says that the Governor’s additional line-item vetoes to the budget reduction package approved last week by the legislature are illegal.

While not arguing the legality of the opinion, I will argue the practicality of not allowing the Governor to make those cuts.

A legal opinion is just that; an opinion. Obviously the Governor’s legal advisors have another opinion. So while we wander into the subjective arena of whose opinion is correct, the fact remains that the state just doesn’t have the money

Of course, there was a way that the legislature could have prevented at least $100 million of those cuts. The Assembly’s failure to approve a bill that would have allowed for a state offshore oil lease that could have brought the state $100 million immediately and a 14-year ongoing payment, forced the Governor to make additional cuts in order to get the state’s cash situation under control.

And the Governor’s additional cuts were indeed severe. Williamson Act funding that protects agricultural land was completely eliminated, a $27 million item. Park funding was cut by an additional $6 million, which will force the closure of some state parks, and the state’s healthy families program that provides health insurance for low income children was also cut dramatically.

So here’s a thought for my Democratic friends. Rather than finding attorneys to provide legal opinions to make the case against the Governor’s actions, let’s do the responsible thing by coming back in August and approving the oil lease that will provide us with much-needed immediate revenue to help us avoid some of these cuts.

Democrats in the Legislature are proposing tax increases on Californians to close the $24 billion budget gap. This report from KFSN TV in Fresno details the taxes.

The Governor recently introduced his new Waste Watchers website, asking state employees and others to offer their suggestions about how State government can operate more efficiently and eliminate waste.

According to the Governor, all suggestions will be looked at carefully to try and eliminate wasteful and make government run more efficiently. Suggestion box users can use the site anonymously.

The Sacramento Bee has called me out as the ring leader of today’s defeat of the ratification of the new State Employee contract. The Bee claims that political decisions made by the State Employees Union led me to the decision I made to abstain on the MOU.

During today’s floor session, I did urge members of the Republican Caucus to either abstain or vote no on the bill. The bill only received 51 of the necessary 54 votes needed for the 2/3 vote.

The concern I have with this new contract is that this MOU is only one of many pieces of the budget agreement passed in February, and not all of those pieces are yet in place. The May 19 ballot initiatives will provide another piece of the puzzle and the budget puzzle itself keeps changing.

We need to wait until more of the pieces are in place and we have a better idea of the severity of our budget crisis. It is estimated by many that even the best case scenario still puts our budget problem at around $8-10 billion for next year. If the Special Election measures fail to pass, that number would increase by at least $6 billion, with other variables being our caseloads and overall state of the economic recovery.

We can’t lock ourselves into this contract now with the State Employees until we see the full budget picture. And that is why I opposed the passage of AB 964 today. When the full budget picture is seen, this contract may well be appropriate and at that time, I will evaluate its provisions in the context of our budget condition.

I sat down last week with Steve Swatt for another Comcast Newsmakers segment. As you might have guessed, the subject was the budget, and specifically, my vote on the 2009-10 State Budget. The video will be playing soon on Comcast, but you can get a sneak preview here.

Assemblyman Roger Niello on Comcast Local Edition from CA Assembly GOP on Vimeo.

The Assembly Republican Caucus has posted new facts, figures, and specifics about this year’s budget agreement here.

I’ve heard from a lot of folks lately, thanks to a recent Sacramento Bee article, about my alleged support of a tax increase to help resolve this year’s budget crisis. Let me clarify.

I did not say anything to The Sacramento Bee that I have not said to countless other newspaper, radio and TV reporters over the last many months.

I have said all along that revenues will definitely have to be a part of the budget solution. It is important, though, to find revenue sources that are not new or increased taxes, such as the Republican proposal to divert the taxes imposed by Props 10 and 63 for special purposes to the general fund on a temporary basis.

I have also continually pointed out that the real budget debate is not, as much of the press has tended to report, simply between reducing spending vs. increasing taxes. While bringing spending in line with revenues on an ongoing basis is an important Republican priority, of upmost importance is overall reform.

We simply must change the way we do things that tend to create the feast and famine budget cycles that we continually experience. This includes government reforms, especially in education where we impose mandates and restrictions on operations that force higher spending, as well as budget reforms, especially our well publicized spending cap.

Further, it also makes good sense, in this disastrous economy, to implement reforms to business regulations that have made it difficult for businesses to succeed in addition to measures that would work to stimulate the economy.

It makes absolutely no sense to ask the taxpayers of California to pay more if we are not willing to reform our ways. Unfortunately, the majority party has ignored every reform proposal that Republicans have put forward, including the ACA 19 (2008) spending cap proposal authored by Republican Leader Mike Villines and me.

Fortunately, since the first of the year, budget discussions between the Big 5 (The Governor and the four legislative leaders) have taken on a much more collaborative tone. The Democrat leadership hasn’t agreed to our reform proposals, but they have seemed willing to at least discuss them.