Posts Tagged: general

Hospitals see ‘chilling effect’ in A.G.’s power over mergers

LInda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles, formerly Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital. (Photo: Downtowngal, Wikimedia)

by SAMANTHA GALLEGOS posted 09.15.2014

State Attorney General Kamala Harris wants unprecedented authority over contracts dealing with nonprofit hospitals, after a deal in Southern California caused abortion-rights activists to cry foul. On the governor’s desk is a bill that would give the attorney general’s office more time, from 60 to 90 days, to review such deals.

Field Poll: Voter support has diminished for Propositions 45 and 46, two health–related ballot initiatives on the upcoming California general election. Currently, 41% of likely voters are inclined to vote Yes on Prop. 45, the Health Insurance Rate Changes initiative, 26% are on the No side, while a growing proportion (33%) are undecided.

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.’

Low turnout waits in the wings

Ventura County voters go to the polls in a California general election. (Photo: Spirit of America)

by BOB MULHOLLAND posted 07.30.2014

OPINION: I now believe the turnout this November will be closer to 45% than 50%. In the previous 8 governor primaries (1982-2010) the average turnout was 39.2% and in those eight General Elections the average turnout was 59.0%, thus, on average an increase of 19.8% from the Primary to the General.

More voters avoid party labels

A California voter casts a ballot. (Photo: Vepar5)

by CONNOR GRUBAUGH posted 06.02.2014

Election 2014: As California voters head to the polls, state elections officials report a continued surge in the percentage of registered voters with no party preference and further erosion in the percentages of voters registered with the Republican and Democratic parties.

Brown budget eyes full funding for teachers’ pensions

Lobby of the CalSTRS building in West Sacramento. (Photo: Paul Houseberg)

by ED MENDEL posted 05.16.2014

Gov. Brown has made a long-delayed proposal to get CalSTRS to full funding over the next three decades, giving the biggest rate hike to schools and smaller increases to the state and teachers. The nation’s largest teacher pension fund, which received $5.8 billion from the three sources last fiscal year, needs an additional contribution of about $4.2 billion a year to project full funding in 30 years.

Election 2014: Gov. Brown on Wednesday signed into law new disclosure rules for nonprofits, a move prompted by the 11th-hour flood of stealth cash that roiled the November 2012 elections. The bill takes effect in July – after this year’s primary elections but in time for the general election.

Do water woes help 2014 bond?

by SAMANTHA GALLEGOS posted 12.25.2013

But even as the rain clouds appear sparse, there may be a silver lining for the backers of a major ballot measure: Experts say the grim outlook could spur voters to approve a multibillion-dollar bond facing voters in November 2014. It could bring to reality the need to borrow money and resolve some of the state’s water issues. (Photo: Lower American River, USFWS)

The rapidly growing cost of state worker retiree health care, a more generous benefit than received by active state workers, soon could be taking a bigger bite out of the state general fund than pensions. As if trading places, a new forecast expects the annual general fund payment for state worker retiree health care, now $500 million less than the payment for pensions, to be $500 million more than the pension payment in six years.

The $130 billion budget Gov. Jerry Brown will unveil Thursday will largely be a yawner. Relatively speaking anyway.

There’ll be no deluge of doom-and-gloom denunciations over the draconian measures the Democratic governor proposes as there were two years ago when the state faced an estimated $26.6 billion gap between revenues and spending commitments.