The state budget is a done deal, the governor says it’s a responsible budget, everyone clapped as the document was signed, yada yada.

Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the vetoes, shall we?

$1.5 billion worth of vetoes in all (that’s the state’s general fund, special and bond funds, and federal funds)… 109 total vetoes… leaving a state budget for the fiscal year of $145.5 billion.

The line-item vetoes are probably more important this year than most years, because legislative Republicans — especially in the state Senate — made them a major issue. They had to be real cuts, they said; Governor Schwarzenegger needed to be fiscally prudent, they said.

Well?

I won’t pass judgment on the list, which you can view in all its glory here (at the end of the document). I will observe, however, that the single biggest cut is not so much a cut… as it is a “reduction.”

I’m not being cute. The governor’s largest line-item veto was $322 million less funding for the state health program Medi-Cal. But Schwarzenegger’s budget team told reporters this afternoon that the program has essentially been over funded the past few years, and they’ve simply brought the program’s budget more in line with reality. “Over the last three years,” says the governor’s veto message, “Medi-Cal expenditures have been more than $400 million General Fund lower than the estimate.”

If that’s true, then this is the most painless “cut” of all… and one that seems like it could’ve been made weeks ago.

Other substantial vetoes include $55 million for a program designed to help the mentally ill homeless; $72 million in “unallocated” reductions for general government (to help the state afford the recently hiked salaries of its workers); $15 million in maintenance at state parks: $12 million in funding for Adult Protective Services; and $20 million in grants for for cleaner-burning construction equipment.

Then there are those cuts that, when viewed in context to the size of the state budget, amount to pulling up the couch cushions and searching for loose change. Some that are notable mostly for what they affect include $500,000 for a new UC center in Mexico (an item on the Senate GOP cut list); $3 million for agricultural and oceanographic research institutes; and $1 million to the state Department of Justice related to global warming lawsuits.

That last one deserves particular notice. The governor slashed Attorney General Jerry Brown’s budget to pursue global warming lawsuits. Hmmm, something tells me that one goes over quite well with the Gang of 14.

And when all is said and done, another sobering bit of budget news. The governor’s top fiscal adviser told reporters today that he expects the state’s red ink to amount to $6.1 billion in the 2008-09 fiscal year. Ouch. That’s worse than the projections commonly used around the Capitol in recent weeks. But the governor’s team denied any contradiction to Schwarzenegger’s often repeated claim of a “zero deficit.”

“We’re not going backwards,” said Department of Finance director Mike Genest.