Panetta prescribed a series of reforms, including requiring lawmakers to produce multi-year budgets to allow for long-range planning, implementing performance standards that determine the cost effectiveness of programs and services, installing cost controls through a pay-as-you-go system, and providing stronger oversight to see if programs really work.

Motorists, visitors to parks are hit

The center-left Liberals launched a governmentwide review of spending and implemented large reductions across a number of departments. They also reduced transfer payments to the provinces and cut public sector employment by 45,000, a reduction of 14 percent over three years. They reduced business subsidies and initiated privatization of government-owned enterprises, particularly in transportation.

The figure represents what the credit union would have earned had it invested money that it loaned at zero interest to 1,100 state workers – legislative staff and others – who by law weren't paid until a budget was in place. This year's legislative standoff was a record 85 days.

The money will arrive none too soon for Portela, as well as hundreds of other operators of independent nursing homes and group homes that are deeply in debt thanks to the state's budget mess. Without Medi-Cal payments for the past three months, they have been borrowing money from friends and family members, taking out high-interest bank loans and putting off paying vendors in an effort to continue caring for some of the state's most fragile citizens.