Sleight-of-hand Democrats say they're closing in on budget deal

Yeah, but they want to cut into the state's rainy-day fund by more than $500 million (on par with last year's amount). Democratic legislators are also counting on an extra $330 million by using different accounting methods for K-14 education funds - along with $250 million more than Gov. Brown projected from redevelopment agency money. In other words, they're doing it with mirrors. From the Sacramento Bee:

In a Capitol press conference, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez stressed that their budget meets Brown's requirements of being balanced over the next three fiscal years and then produces a surplus in 2015-16. They emphasized how close their proposal is to Brown's, but said they did not want to cut as deeply into the safety net. "I strongly believe that the differences between the governor's proposal and our proposal are bridgeable," Pérez said. "Frankly, we're not only on the same page as the governor, we're in the same paragraph."

The big holdup has been welfare-to-work programs. Basically, Democratic lawmakers don't want to cut as much as Brown did. They're proposing to exempt parents of young children from having to seek work to receive aid.