In putting together a California budget, legislators pay attention to the end-of-the-year balance — the difference between expenses and available tax revenue and the previous year's ending cash on hand. The state has a budget surplus when the difference is positive and a deficit when it's negative. That number is usually a big number, but small relative to the overall budget. But that all changed with the COVID-19 pandemic, as emergency expenses soared along with tax revenue and federal assistance. The average ending balance from 2006 through the 2019-20 fiscal year was a surplus of about $2.8 billion; for 2020 through 2022-23 it was more than $37.5 billion.