Seems to me they are funding the wildland fires with the Reserve account. Un-freakin-believable. Click the link above to read the whole story and look at the difference between what they are funding and what they are actually using! For last two years the budget for firefighting was $82 million...costs however were $392 & $206 million, respecively. And those weren't unusual years! Seems to me the State has a case of "It's Not Going to Happen to Me"...even though it does happen to us, year after year!
California spent a record $392 million fighting fires across the state in the fiscal year that ended Monday, burning another hole in the state's already strained finances and forcing officials to dip into shrinking cash reserves to pay firefighting bills.
The amount is by far the highest in the past decade, and it will likely get worse with wildfires in 27 areas of the state already burning early in the fire season.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared emergencies in 11 counties, including Monterey, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara, a necessary move to free up more state funds to fight fires.
"We always will be in a position to aggressively respond to any disaster in California regardless of the cost," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.
In the past decade, however, the state has not budgeted enough funds to fight wildfires. In every year but one, the state has had to dip into cash reserves to pay firefighting costs.
"That's what reserves are for," said Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who chairs the Assembly Budget Committee. "We always make sure that there's enough money for firefighting regardless of what's in the rest of the budget."
