California legislators are now working without pay, after State Controller John Chiang determined that the budget presented by the deadline set by voters and vetoed by Governor Brown June 16, was incomplete and not balanced.

His analysis sought to determine whether the budget met the requirements of Proposition 25 and Proposition 58, which forfeit Legislative pay if a balanced budget is not passed by June 15.

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“My office’s careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished,” said Chiang. “The numbers simply did not add up, and the Legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the Governor.”

Proposition 25, titled the “On-Time Budget Act of 2010,” was approved by voters November 2, 2010. The initiative lowered the vote requirement for passing a budget from two-thirds to a simple majority without lowering the two-thirds vote required for tax increases. It also forfeits Legislators’ pay and living expenses incurred from June 16 until “the day that the budget bill is presented to the Governor.”

Chiang’s analysis found that the state’s projected expenses of  $89.75 billion could not be met with only $87.9 billion in anticipated revenues, leaving an imbalance of $1.85 billion. Within that shortfall, education was underfunded by $1.3 billion, a condition not allowed without the suspension of Prop. 98, which would require a 2/3 majority vote.

“I’m not surprised, I think if, by his delaying any action after the budget was passed, you could tall that he was determining the best way to announce that he was going to withhold pay,” said Assemblyman Cameron Smyth.

Under Proposition 25, legislators actually forfeit their pay, as opposed to previous sessions where pay was merely suspended and held for the lawmakers until an agreement could be met.

“This is not temporary, this is complete,” Smyth said. He’s not completely convinced that using pay as an incentive is an effective way to get the budget that the voters were hoping for.

“I think this interjects the Controller into the budget debate,” he explained. “From now on the legislature will now try to determine just what the controller deems is a good budget. There are concerns about the separation of powers and jurisdictions between branches of government.”

Smyth said that, despite the urgency of going without a paycheck, there has been no urgency from his colleagues to reconvene and work things out.

“There are no sessions planned, no scheduled budget discussion,” he said. “The plan was to pass the budget, we know it was passed last week, but there is no movement at this point”

He cautioned that there might be a bit of voters’ remorse as the budget years go by.

“This is a case of ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ because the Democrats wanted a majority vote budget, they passed a majority vote budget with all the Democrats, the Democratic Governor vetoed it and the Democratic Controller is forfeiting legislative pay as a result.”

“Right now, I think there’s a lot of discontent among the Democratic party,” he added.

Nothing in the Constitution or state law gives the State Controller the authority to judge the honesty, legitimacy or viability of a budget. The Controller can only determine whether the expected revenues will equal or exceed planned expenditures in the budget, as required by Article 4, Section 12(g) of the Constitution: “. . .the Legislature may not send to the Governor for consideration, nor may the Governor sign into law, a budget bill that would appropriate from the General Fund, for that fiscal year, a total amount that. . .exceeds General Fund revenues for that fiscal year estimated as of the date of the budget bill’s passage. That estimate of General Fund revenues shall be set forth in the budget bill passed by the Legislature.”

“While the vetoed budget contains solutions of questionable achievability and some to which I am personally opposed, current law provides no authority for my office to second-guess them in my enforcement of Proposition 25,”said Chiang. “My job is not to substitute my policy judgment for that of the Legislature and the Governor, rather it is to be the honest-broker of the numbers.”

The budget also counted on $320 million in hospital fees, $103 million in taxes on managed-care plans, and $300 million in vehicle registration charges. However, the Legislature never passed the bills necessary to collect or spend those funds as part of the State budget.

Additional reporting from CNN