Other Voices: Effects of California's mismanagement hit home at Sierra College - Aaron Klein, The Union

For years, California has been living beyond its means, spending more than its revenue, and using a variety of accounting gimmicks to paper over the problem. In the last year, it has become readily apparent that the music has indeed stopped, and it's time to pay the piper. Because of the efforts we've made to work together and build fiscal discipline, our Board of Trustees had built $6.5 million in new reserves over the last five years. While we had originally set these reserves aside for a “rainy day,” this was much more like a fiscal hurricane — and the storm is still raging. We used $3.8 million of reserves, $1.9 million in one-time money and $4.1 million in spending cuts to cover the 2009-10 budget hole.