With a windfall of cash five years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was doing away with a state budget "gimmick" one of his predecessors relied on to shave about $800 million off a deficit during the Great Recession. The accounting trick, adopted in 2009, delayed state worker payroll from the end of one fiscal year on June 30 to the start of the next on July 1. A decade later Newsom spent nearly $1 billion to end the subterfuge, with one caveat. “If I use it in six years, in a recession, forgive... Read this story
