Anyone with unclaimed property with the city has until June 25 to file a claim. The city released a list of the property on April 26, and has since received more than 200 claims totaling $122,000.

Residents can visit the city of Sacramento website to review the list, and obtain instructions on filing a claim. For those without internet access, the list — along with instructions on filing a claim — is available at the guard desks in the lobbies of both City Hall buildings.

The unclaimed property list consists of 10,419 unclaimed items, including un-cashed checks and utility account credits occurring when customers overpay on their account and don’t request a refund.

The unclaimed property totals to approximately $1.77 million, averaging out to about $170 per person.

This is the second year the city has published the list, which is now an annual publication. Any unclaimed property will be added to the Sacramento’s General Fund.

Last year, a list of 15,000 unclaimed items was released, totaling about $1.95 million. The city approved 253 claims and paid out $350,000.

The remaining unclaimed property was transferred to the general fund — $1.5 million of which was added to the Economic Uncertainty Reserve.

To review the unclaimed property list, instructions and claim form, visit the city of Sacramento website.

The action came a day after lawmakers passed the main budget bill outlining a $96.3 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts in July.

Saturday’s votes were on a handful of targeted bills. They included ones that would provide college scholarships for middle class families, increase grants for those in the welfare-to-work program, restore dental care for low-income adults, distribute money for school energy projects and strengthen oversight of the California Public Utilities Commission.

The centerpiece legislation was the expansion of Medicaid, which is called Medi-Cal in California. Broadening the entitlement program to reduce the number of uninsured people in the country is one of the cornerstones of President Barack Obama’s national health care reforms.

Several Democratic lawmakers called Saturday’s vote historic.

“We don’t know for certain that this will contain the costs; that’s certainly the goal. But … we also make sure that health care is not considered a privilege of the fortunate few but as a basic human right,” said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco. “That’s what we’re implementing today. This is a big deal.”

Republicans raised concerns about whether California can afford the expansion over the long run, especially once the federal government drops its commitment from 100 percent to 90 percent.

Democrats included a provision in the legislation that allows for future lawmakers to reconsider the expansion if the federal government’s share drops below 70 percent.

The federal government will pay the full cost of expanding the low-income health program, which is called Medi-Cal in California, for the first three years. It will gradually reduce payments to 90 percent starting in 2020, putting the rest of the cost on the states that adopt the expansion.

Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor has estimated that by taking on new enrollees, the state could be responsible for between $300 million and $1.3 billion a year starting in 2020.

“I worry about expectations that we set out for individuals with ACA in California and having the rug pulled out from underneath us without a funding mechanism. Can we as a state handle that financial burden? I’m very concerned about this,” said Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin.

Democrats said the expansion would help save lives, keep workers healthy and attract billions of dollars from the federal government into the state. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, noted that taxpayers and those who have health insurance already are paying for the medical care of those who currently go without insurance. The Medicaid expansion will cover many of those who now receive uncompensated care, he said.

While the Affordable Care Act has led to deep partisan divisions across the country, the bills that passed Saturday had a sliver of bipartisan support. Katcho Achadjian of San Luis Obispo was the lone Republican to support the expansion when it passed the Assembly on a 55-24 vote, while two Republicans, Joel Anderson of San Diego and Anthony J. Cannella of Ceres, joined Democrats in passing the legislation 28-8 in the Senate.

Achadjian said he opposed the federal health care law but believed he should vote to implement it in California now that it has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

“There are many of those who cannot afford it otherwise in my district who will benefit from this act,” he said after the vote.

Anderson, vice chairman of the Senate Health Committee, acted for similar reasons but also had pressed for a provision that would allow the state to back out of the Medicaid expansion if the federal government reduces support in the future. He acknowledged that politics can sometimes make strange bedfellows.

“I opposed it for two years,” he told The Associated Press after the vote. “Now I’m a champion trying to ensure that it has a fighting chance for survival.”

The Medi-Cal vote came a day after the Legislature passed the main bill to enact California’s spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Lawmakers approved so-called trailer bills that implement certain parts of the budget on Saturday, their deadline to send a balanced budget to the governor.

One bill reduced state funding to counties to provide indigent care and public health services as a result of moving more people into Medi-Cal. The move was met with strong opposition by lawmakers representing rural counties who worried about being shortchanged.

Another action concerned a proposed constitutional amendment seeking to lower the vote threshold from two-thirds to 55 percent for cities and counties to pass bond measures, primarily to support local law enforcement and fire protection. The lower threshold already applies to school districts.

Republican lawmakers said the amendment was meant to get around the provisions of Proposition 13, which caps property tax assessments.

The proposal, which requires voter approval, passed in the Assembly but will be considered later in the Senate, meaning it was not part of the budget process.

Buoyed by supermajorities in both chambers and higher-than-anticipated tax revenue, Democratic lawmakers have been able to restore some of the money that was slashed during the recession for mental health treatment, health care for the poor and higher education.

Those partial restorations were possible even as they stuck to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s more-conservative revenue projections.

Republicans were largely excluded from the budget negotiations and blasted the Democratic agreement as too costly given California’s debts, including tens of billions of dollars in unfunded public employee pension and retiree health care liabilities.

Under the spending plan, K-12 school districts will receive more money, particularly those with high levels of students who come from low-income families, who are not proficient in English or who are foster children. Districts also will have more control over how they spend state aid and will receive a one-time infusion of $1.2 billion to implement “common core,” a more rigorous academic standard intended to better prepare students for college and a career.

Another measure that passed Saturday will set aside $305 million annually for college scholarships for students whose families make less than $150,000 a year. The so-called middle class scholarships would be available starting in the 2014 academic year.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown will further the state’s recovery or eventually return it to the multibillion-dollar deficits common during the recession.

Lawmakers had until midnight Saturday to send the governor a balanced budget for the fiscal year that begins in July, but they acted swiftly after the state’s top Democrats reached a deal earlier in the week. Both houses approved the main budget bill, AB110, on party-line votes: 28-10 in the Senate and 54-25 in the Assembly.

They will reconvene Saturday to vote on roughly 15 bills that will enact specific parts of the budget.

Senate leader Darrell Steinberg said the $96.3 billion Democratic spending plan ends the “doom-and-gloom” scenarios that were a hallmark of years past, when deficits grew into the double digits, state programs were eliminated, workers were furloughed and budget deadlines were blown by weeks and sometimes months.

“The passage of the budget may just represent the end of one very difficult era and the beginning of a new and better era – an era of economic growth, hope and restoration,” said Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento.

Republican lawmakers in both houses of the Legislature were less enthusiastic. They said the spending plan contained accounting gimmicks and failed to address some of the state’s most pressing fiscal time bombs, including tens of billions of dollars in unfunded public employee pension liabilities.

Republican Assemblyman Jeff Gorell also said it contains additional spending that will come back to hurt the state once the higher sales and income taxes passed by voters last fall expire.

“We will have to make cuts again,” said Gorell, of Camarillo. “With this budget, we have positioned ourselves perfectly to repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Thanks to a recent voter-approved initiative, Democrats could pass the budget on a simple majority vote and did not need Republicans’ support. Democrats noted the budget maintains a roughly $1 billion reserve and will not restore all the programs cut during the recession.

It also funnels significantly more money to K-12 schools and alters the education funding formula so more money will flow to districts with high levels of students who come from low-income families, who are not proficient in English or who are foster children. The funding shift was one of Brown’s top legislative priorities of the year.

The governor has said providing more money to help students who are disadvantaged is the right thing to do, and it was a part of the budget that drew rare bipartisan support in both houses.

Republican Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, of Modesto, said the state’s current method for distributing money to schools has created “historic inequities” in lower-income areas such as the San Joaquin Valley.

The governor’s formula, she said, “seeks to give all kids, regardless of their socio-economic background, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their geography, equal access to a top-quality education so they can be successful in life.”

The budget also provides more money for welfare programs, mental health treatment, health care for the poor, the court system and higher education, although Democratic lawmakers said they did not get all the spending restorations they sought. That’s because the leadership agreed to go with the governor’s more conservative estimates of tax revenue in the coming fiscal year.

Many rank-and-file Democrats favor a revenue estimate offered by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which was $3.2 billion higher. They hope to reopen the budget after the first of the year if revenue does indeed come in ahead of the governor’s estimate, but Brown has said he agreed to no such thing.

Among the objections raised by Republicans and even some Democratic lawmakers was a funding shift agreed to by the governor that transferred $500 million from an account funded by industry fines that is supposed to pay for the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The money instead is being lent to the state’s general fund.

Similar internal transfers from years past have left the state owing billions of dollars from its general fund to a variety of state accounts. Republicans said this budget makes too little headway in repaying that money and in addressing the state’s longer-term debts, primarily pensions and retiree health care obligations.

Republican Sen. Ted Gaines, of Rocklin, also noted that the state will be challenged to pay for the governor’s high-speed rail and water-delivery projects, which have a combined price tag approaching $100 billion.

Several Republicans noted that the budget was balanced largely because of temporary tax increases and that the Legislature will face the prospect of spending cuts once those expire.

The quarter-cent sales tax increase will last for four years, while the income tax hike on those making more than $250,000 a year will last for seven.

“I can prophetically tell you (the budget) will grow into unsupportable spending down the road because it’s built on the backs of high-income earners, and when you have that, you have a wildly fluctuating revenue source,” said Sen. Bob Huff, a Republican from Diamond Bar.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Such are the circumstances for same-sex marriage supporters as they await a U.S. Supreme Court decision that will determine whether California’s voter-enacted ban on gay marriages lives or dies. The high court’s ruling in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 is expected before the end of the month, bringing with it the possibility that same-sex couples again will be able to wed in the nation’s most populous state.

The court’s justices heard oral arguments in the 4-year-old case in March. This month, as their summer recess nears, the justices meet every Monday morning to issue opinions and may schedule additional days for rulings, including one already set for this Thursday. But the court does not give advance notice of which decisions it will release when, leaving organizers of decision-day events being planned nationwide to watch, wait and plan for multiple scenarios.

“Not knowing what the day or the nature of the decision will be, everything feels like a placeholder,” said Stuart Gaffney, who along with his husband, John Lewis, is arranging a public rally in San Francisco. “From couples who would love to exchange their vows ceremonially that day to entertainers and even people who have equipment and sound systems, we can’t say with any certainty whether anyone can be there.”

Court watchers and legal experts are anticipating one of six possible outcomes: One could make bans on gay marriage unconstitutional nationwide; another would legalize gay marriage only in California and six other states that already provide the legal rights of marriage through civil unions or domestic partnerships; three other scenarios would allow same-sex marriages to resume in California itself.

The justices also could uphold Proposition 8, which would turn the planned parties into protests and prompt gay rights activists to seek to undo the ban at the ballot box next year.

“You prepare for every possibility, but there are so many roads to victory here that will lead to marriage equality back in California,” said Theodore Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for the two same-sex couples who sued to overturn Proposition 8 in 2009.

The ban’s supporters are not planning any formal events to mark the occasion, said National Organization for Marriage President John Eastman.

“We are, of course, quite hopeful that the court will not interfere with the right of the people to decide this very important issue of public policy,” Eastman said.

If gay marriage backers get the ruling they are hoping for, it is likely to take about a month before couples could start getting married in California, according to San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. The losing side has 25 days under court rules to petition for a rehearing, and the decision would not become final until that period elapses.

California Gov. Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris and state public health director Ron Chapman, who while named as defendants in the case refused to defend Proposition 8 in court, might need a few days more to notify county clerks that same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses should no longer be turned away, said Herrera.

“We are just going to be prepared to do whatever we need to do if Prop. 8 is struck down, which we are confident it will be, to have all the resources available to effectuate the ruling and to let the marriages begin as quickly as they can,” he said.

Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and woman, passed with 52 percent of the vote in November 2008, a little more than five months after the state Supreme Court had legalized same-sex marriages by striking down a pair of laws that also had limited marriage to opposite-sex couples.

Shasta County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen, who heads a statewide association of clerks and registrars, said some counties have started hearing from ministers and lay people who are offering to volunteer as marriage commissioners in case there is a rush for same-sex weddings. Still, she doesn’t anticipate any problems in moving forward should same-sex marriage again be made legal.

During the brief window when same-sex couples could get married back in 2008 — an estimated 18,000 couples did — the state updated its marriage licenses to make them gender-neutral. The forms never were changed back to refer to a “bride” and “groom.”

“I don’t anticipate a big hiccup,” said Darling Allen. “We have already done this, so we can do it again pretty easily.”

Among those eagerly awaiting word from the high court are Thom Watson, 50, and Jeff Tabaco, 36, a Daly City couple who are celebrating their 10th anniversary together this month. In 2009, they had a ceremony to acknowledge their devotion to each other, but they decided against marrying in another state while Proposition 8 was in effect.

Now, they’re making tentative plans for a wedding.

“California is our home, so we want to be able to marry here. That was the reason after Prop. 8 passed we decided to have a commitment ceremony,” Watson said. “It was sort of like, we are not going to let this dissuade us from making that public commitment to each other, but we are definitely looking for that next step.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

In an email to its members early Tuesday, the Service Employees Union International Local 1000 says workers would receive 4.5 percent pay raises by July 1, 2015. The increases would happen sooner if state tax revenues hit certain targets.

Union president Yvonne Walker says the contract includes a guarantee of no furlough days and protects health care and retirement benefits.

David Gay, a spokesman for the state Human Resources Department, confirmed that a tentative agreement is in place, but declined to discuss the details.

State workers covered by the contract will begin voting on the proposal the week of June 24.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO (AP) – Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature’s Democratic leaders moved close to a state budget deal Monday that is expected to revamp education funding and begin restoring some of the social services cut during the recession.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg emerged from a meeting with the governor and Assembly Speaker John Perez at the Capitol and said no significant sticking points remain just days ahead of the budget’s legislative deadline.

“It’s almost there, but not yet,” he said.

He said he expected no problem hitting the Saturday deadline for the Legislature to send its budget for the coming fiscal year to the governor’s office.

The Legislature’s budget conference committee voted Monday night on some of the key aspects of the compromise, including the governor’s plan to revise the education funding formula. Brown wants schools with high proportions of low-income students, English learners and foster children to receive more money as a way to help boost achievement in lower-performing schools.

One of the main points of contention had been which revenue estimates to adopt – the one the Democratic governor used in proposing his $96.4 billion revised budget in May or the one from the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, which was $3.2 billion higher.

Brown has resisted using the higher revenue projection, saying it relied too much on volatile capital gains.

An improving economy and the sales and income tax increases approved by voters last fall have brightened the state’s budget picture considerably. That has emboldened Democratic lawmakers, who control both houses of the Legislature, to call for higher spending than Brown wanted.

Democrats sought to restore a variety of services that had been cut in recent years.

Those in the Assembly promoted a spending plan that increased welfare assistance, expanded child care for the poor and gave more college aid to middle-class families.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, sought to restore dental care for the neediest, expand access to mental health and autism treatments, and foster job training through career technical education in high schools.

Both houses of the Legislature also wanted to restore about $100 million in court funding, ultimately settling on $63 million in the compromise.

The legislative leaders also settled on Brown’s more conservative revenue projection, said Sen. Mark Leno, who is co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Budget Conference Committee. He said Democrats and the governor would revisit some of the lawmakers’ spending priorities next year, when he hoped higher tax revenue would materialize.

“It doesn’t close the door on anything,” Leno said of the lower revenue estimates as he opened the committee’s hearing Monday.

Perez said some issues remain to be solved in the days ahead, but said Democrats and the governor “will have a balanced budget we can all be proud of.”

Lawmakers need only a simple majority vote to pass a budget. With Democrats controlling both houses, they can do that without Republican support.

Brown’s K-12 funding formula had been a point of contention because officials in school districts that do not have high levels of low-income students or English learners also wanted a slice of the extra revenue.

The compromise will provide a higher base grant to every school district at the same time it provides more money to schools with struggling students.

Democratic Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield of Woodland Hills, who sits on the budget conference committee, said the compromise achieves the governor’s goal of providing more money to districts with the greatest “but do so in a way that no school or district is going to get left behind.”

The governor also wants to give school districts more control of how to spend state aid.

One of the major unresolved issues is how to expand the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, to some 1.4 million Californians. The state has opted to expand the program under President Barack Obama’s health care reforms.

The federal government will pay the entire amount of the expanded coverage from 2014 to 2016, gradually reducing that to a 90 percent share.

The governor proposed to cut local government support for Medi-Cal by $300 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year and up to $1.3 billion in 2015-16. Brown argued the state would be paying twice if it did not reduce those payments – for providing coverage under the Medicaid expansion that will be funded by the federal government while maintaining the same level of county support for indigent health care services.

County officials and health care advocates argued against the cuts because California will still have 3 million to 4 million uninsured residents requiring care after the Medicaid expansion.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.