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9A Page 1 0 'State Budget' Continued from Page 1... Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Wins: State Worker Furloughs Can Proceed. The Governor won an important victory Wednesday, when a Sacramento superior court judge rejected arguments from two state employee unions that the Governor lacks the authority to furlough state workers as a means of reducing state costs. The judge said the state's current budget crisis and lack of funds represented an emergency and the Govemor's order was "reasonable and necessary under the circumstances." He ordered the State Controller, who had sided with the unions and refused to cut state worker paychecks, to implement the Governor's plan by cuttings state workers' paycheCkS by ten percent. The move will save the state an estimated $1.3 billion. League Alerts Administration of Impacts of Local Funding Deferrals. Information provided by more than 40 cities this week made it possible for the League to provide information to the Governor's administration budget and transportation officials about specific local impacts that would likely occur if a plan to delay payments to local agencies of funds from several sources became part of the final budget-balancing package. As reported last week -jn Priority Focus, the proposal is defer local payments of Highway Users Tax Account (HUT A) funds for seven months; Proposition 42 transportation funds for three months; and mandate payments for two months. The League asked cities to provide information on what impact these deferred payments would have on their ability to provide services. More than 40 cities responded, providing specific examples of how deferral of these funds will directly translate into local project delays. In a transmittal sent to administration officials, League Legislative Director Dan Carrigg wrote: "Several frustrated respondents described [the proposal as] an 'anti-economic stimulus. ' For some cities this means waiting up to a year on street rehabilitation and for others, stopping construction on major infrastructure projects indefinitely because of the costs to stop construction and start again. Public works officers also point out that these delays will occur during the spring/summer construction period, and also at a time when they have been receiving lower bids that would aI/ow these projects to be stretched further. In addition, some cities report a delay in HUT A payments would mean losing staff in their municipal public worksltransportation departments. " While sympathetic with the state's cash flow challenges, Carrigg urged the administration officials to consider approaches that minimize the amount of disruption cities would experience as they work to stimulate important economic activities at the local level. 'AB 32' Continued from Page 1... In 2009 and 2010, the focus of the climate change work at the ARB and other state agencies will be to adopt regulations implementing the Seoping Plan. ARB plans to continue to use their formal structure of public workshops, draft regulations and formal comment periods for these regulations. Under existing Jaw. the regulations developed in the next two years, will go into effect no later than Jan. 1\ 2012. The key requirements for any regulations developed in this process must meet the following: . Use open public process for new regulations . Minimize costs and maximize benefits . Protect low-income communities . Complement existing smog and air toxics programs . Minimize greenhouse gas emission leakage and administrative burdens The following measures contained within the ARB Scoping Plan and adopted by the ARB as discrete early action items are expected to go before the ARB Board for adoption in 2009: 6