A free health and dental clinic. (Photo: Joseph Sohm)Covered California, the first and largest state-sanctioned health insurance exchange created through the Affordable Care Act, is going to start the new fiscal year with less money. A combination of lackluster enrollment and the loss of some federal funds that helped sustain it through its start-up period are partly the reason, said Peter Lee, Covered California’s executive director.
Gov. Brown and aides head to a Capitol briefing on his latest state budget. (Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli)Jerry Brown kept the purse strings tight on the University of California, but proposed an $8 billion boost for public education and wants to spend $1 billion of cap-and-trade auction money on high-speed rail. transit and related projects. In the first budget of his last term in office, the Democratic governor offered a $164 billion spending plan — $113 billion of it in the General Fund, the state’s coffer of sales, income and business taxes — for the 2015-16 fiscal year that begins July 1.
Newly elected Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a former Assembly speaker, gives a kiss to fellow Democratic Sen. Cathleen Galgiani. Both, along with other lawmakers, were officially sworn in Monday. (Photo: Steve Yeater/Associated Press)California lawmakers, many elected by razor-thin margins in districts where the turnout was historically low, were formally sworn in Monday for the two-year session. Even on the first day, the battle lines were being drawn for the 2015-16 session.
Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, the Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal adviser, unveils the latest budget projections. (Photo: AP/Rich PedroncelliCalifornia, long bedeviled by daunting budget deficits, is likely to end the next fiscal year with $4.2 billion in reserve, with half that amount due to a budget-reform measure that voters approved on Nov. 4, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan financial adviser.
OPINION: Our schools are partners in securing the health and well-being of our children. Other than their homes, Sacramento kids spend more time in school than anywhere else. That’s why we, as a community, invest in things like nutritional meals, physical education, and basic health care and counseling at schools—because we know healthy students are better learners.
Most California public pension funds have the power to raise annual employer rates when they need more money. The California State Teachers Retirement System, a century old this year, is an outlier that needs legislation to raise rates. As lawmakers at the Capitol struggled with budget cuts during a deep economic recession, pleas for a CalSTRS rate increase were not acknowledged with a legislative hearing until last year.