They've been doing this by me. LA Metro actually finished digging up the street for a subway station about 7 months ahead of schedule (which I think is practically unheard of)
California has gotten a windfall in sales taxes from Amazon and Ebay in recent years when sales tax collection was forced. The money is always poorly spent.
I don't know in detail what California's budget is like (other than they've been in the whole lately?) But I personally view a lot of the issues with local and state government spending as being associated with bidding processes and the cost of e.g., infrastructure. I think California generally has the right priorities (roughly, education, healthcare, safety (although this could perhaps be reshuffled, see zeitgeist), and infrastructure). If anything I think they probably need to work to reduce costs in higher education especially and spend more on infrastructure (or reduce costs, but I think that'll be harder than in ed).