Gov. Jerry BrownOn his wish list for the next fiscal year, Gov. Jerry Brown has put higher education right near the top. California’s public colleges and universities, Brown said as he unveiled the state budget, “used to be four years and free. Now in many cases it’s six years and expensive.” (Photo: Samantha Gallegos/Capitol Weekly)
A major public pension reform initiative got a mixed cost analysis last week from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The measure would give state and local governments the option of cutting retirement benefits current workers earn in the future, while preserving benefits already earned through past service.
California is in the forefront of the nation’s new health care insurance reforms and is following its own drummer, such as when it decided not to go along with the president’s call to give certain policyholders a year-long delay from being kicked off dubious health insurance plans. But the political forces surrounding the Affordable Care Act in California are profound and are all but certain to play a role in campaigns, including the potential reelection of California’s powerful insurance commissioner and whether Californians will approve a high-stakes initiative to regulate health insurers’ rates. (Above, left to right: Covered California’s Peter Lee, Diana Dooley and Susan Kennedy.) Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)
The governor, who has described himself as tight with a buck, set out to prove it before the UC Regents when he said they needed to bite into a “reality sandwich” if they were thinking of getting more than a 5 percent hike in state funds. The increase Brown granted in this year’s budget was relatively modest but desperately needed to fill some gaps for UC.
OPINION: In mid-October, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed announced he was taking steps to put a measure on the November 2014 ballot to give local politicians the power to break their promises to teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees to provide them with a secure retirement.
The question is simple: Should local governments pick up the tab for complying with California’s laws requiring local open meetings and access to public records? But the answer is not so simple. (Photo: Almonroth)
When Gov. Brown, flanked by a jug of beer and a happy lawmaker, signed AB 647, it seemed he was ushering in a new era for California’s craft breweries and the beer drinkers who enjoy them. Craft beer enthusiasts hoped the new law would make it easier for them to take a growler — a large, jug-like beer container — purchased at one brewery into a different one and have it refilled there, thus saving them the cost and space of purchasing a new container. (Photo: Visitor 7, Dunsmuir)
Moves may allow bankrupt city to avoid pension fight
Lowering the vote threshold for passage of local school parcel taxes would likely allow far more to pass. But there is no evidence that it would expand their use beyond the sort of wealthy Bay Area school districts that already have them. These are the key findings of a report released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). The report assesses the potential effect of reducing the vote required to pass these taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent—a proposal the state legislature has been discussing. Although a parcel tax is one of the only local revenue options available to school districts, these taxes are not widespread. Only about 10 percent of districts have passed one, and the money raised amounts to less than 1 percent of total K–12 revenue.
Gov. Brown has signed into a law a measure allowing prison inmates who were minors at the time they committed their crimes to apply for resentencing and early release at least 15 years into their sentence.