Mike Genest, who announced recently that he's resigning as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget director, deserves a respite after four years of dealing with the state's chronic fiscal crisis.

Genest is a genuinely nice guy, as well as one of the few people who truly understand the state's tangled finances. "It feels like a good time for me to step back from the day-to-day fray of things," he said.