The UC Board of Regents’ decision to increase tuition over the next five years brought a swift – and negative – reaction from Sacramento, signaling a fiscal showdown when the state budget is unveiled in January. “To UC students and their families, please know that the fight over this nearly 28% fee increase is not over,” said Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins.
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: There is a growing consensus among Americans from all political persuasions and walks of life that we must replace ineffective, unfair and expensive incarceration practices with new, smarter approaches to keeping communities safe.
A view of downtown Stockton. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)Calpensions: A federal judge ruled last week that Stockton’s CalPERS pensions can be cut in bankruptcy. But Stockton does not want to cut pensions, and the lone holdout creditor says it can be paid without cutting pensions. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein may have clarified the legal issue of whether CalPERS pensions, widely regarded as untouchable, can be cut if any of the 1,581 local governments in the giant system take the drastic step of bankruptcy.
OPINION: We live in a nation where up to 440,000 patients die each year of preventable medical errors. It’s now the third leading cause of death, behind only cancer and heart disease. Any of us could become a victim of medical negligence. You could be harmed by a doctor impaired by drugs or alcohol. Your life could be ruined by a prescription drug addict strung out on too many drugs obtained by “doctor shopping.”
Calpensions: A small but affluent Orange County city, with a current staff of only a half dozen employees, would have to pay about $3.6 million to leave CalPERS, the giant state pension system estimated two years ago. “I almost feel like just handing this to a reporter and saying, ‘Look at this.’
Full funding of the troubled California State Teachers Retirement System has been approved by the Legislature, with most of the additional $5 billion coming from school districts that get no offsetting money from the state.
OPINION People who use IHSS, their advocates and the legislature asked: Where are the 40,000 new people ready, willing, qualified and able to do this work, at low pay, with no sick time, no vacation time and usually no health benefits – to take the places of the people already doing the work – some of them for decades?
State Capitol, Sacramento. (Photo: David Monniaux)ANALYSIS: Senate Leader Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez of Los Angeles are both Democrats, but the two are hardly friends. The events of the last week captured the uneasy, though often productive, working relationship between the two leaders.
OPINION: With this proposal, the Governor, who has shown recent leadership in stabilizing revenues and beginning to restore programs cut during the recession, is calling for a restructuring of the state’s existing rainy day fund, known as the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA). (An alternative proposal approved by the Legislature in 2010 is scheduled to appear on the statewide ballot in November.)