Last week, the Assembly Appropriations Committee derailed Assembly Bill (AB) 975 by moving it to the Suspense File, recognizing the many negative impacts, including the high unnecessary costs to the state. Those who know and care about health care are relieved, because the special interest attack on nonprofit hospitals was the poster child for how
A record $16 billion in income tax revenue will flow into state coffers during April, according to predictions in Gov. Jerry Brown’s January budget plan.
About $5 billion of that $16 billion comes from higher taxes approved by voters in November through Proposition 30 — $4.5 billion in taxes owed for 2012 and $500
Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, an upset victor last fall in a new election process, has introduced a bill containing Gov. Brown’s stalled proposal to restructure the CalPERS board, adding financial expertise and loosening labor control.
The proposal to change the board, which needs voter approval because of a labor-backed initiative in 1992, would
A nationwide study, including CalPERS and CalSTRS, projects that huge pension fund losses during the financial crisis will be offset over three decades by a wave of recently enacted cost-cutting reforms — but only if several things happen.
–Pension fund earnings forecasts must hit their target. Critics say the forecasts, 7.5 percent a year
Gov. Jerry Brown wants to give California’s 1,032 school districts more than $2.6 billion over the next five years to help them lower their energy bills.
Districts say they don’t know where to apply, what they can spend the money on or how much of an overall need exists but they’ll gratefully accept the
California Governor Jerry Brown has received praise for proposing a balanced state budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The last time California proposed a balanced budget was in 2007, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.
A recent report by California Common Sense, a nonprofit research group,
It’s Round 3 in Jerry Brown vs. the locals.
The governor’s efforts to reform California’s 29-year-old enterprise zone system, an ongoing tax-break program that encourages business investment and promotes new jobs in economically distressed areas of the state, is his latest attempt in a series of major moves targeting local businesses and governance.
Ann Ravel, California’s political watchdog, captured public attention in November when she squared off against an obscure but well-heeled group calling itself Americans for Social Responsibility.
The Arizona-based nonprofit poured $11 million at the 11th hour into the California campaign opposed to Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax initiative, Proposition 30. On the eve of the
California’s core environmental protection law, a 43-year-old statute frequently denounced by developers and business interests as a tangle of red tape, is on a Capitol hit list once again.
But the political dynamic this year is unusual: Those pushing hard for change are Democrats, including Gov. Brown, the Senate and Assembly leaders and a
Saying California was “back” and “on the move,” a chipper Gov. Jerry Brown urged lawmakers in his annual State of the State speech to streamline funding for schools, focus on implementing federal health care reform and keep a tight rein on spending so the budget stays balanced.
The Democratic governor said Thursday that he