When someone is in danger, or has been the victim of a crime, they call the police. Law enforcement’s ability to respond to these calls is a function of capacity—the number of police officers available to respond when those calls to 911 are made.
Much ado has been made about rising crime rates and
One phone call started it all.
It was an anonymous tipster who alerted the state’s top auditor to faked overtime pay at Caltrans, but as the four-year investigation continued it turned up evidence of fudged data and safety testing violations at structures across the state.
State Auditor Elaine Howle’s 31-page report last week
From the Public Policy Institute of California
With the economy weighing on Californians’ minds, fewer than half of the state’s likely voters favor construction of a high-speed rail system or support an $11.1 billion water bond that is scheduled to go on the 2014 ballot. Both get majority support with lower price tags. These
Apparently 2012 wasn’t a banner year for California cemeteries, particularly the one maintained by the Kern River Valley Cemetery District.
It’s not that there isn’t a market for plots. The U.S. Census Bureau says 242,848 Californians died last year alone.
People are just dying to get in somewhere else.
It occurs to me that the so-called “reformers” who want to overhaul public employees’ pensions are playing a game of Calvinball.
You remember that game, right? From the Calvin & Hobbs comic strip. The way to play Calvinball is to make it up as you go along. If you feel like you’re losing, you
From the Public Policy Institute of California:
Strong majorities of Californians favor Governor Jerry Brown’s budget proposal and, specifically, his plan to direct extra money to school districts with more English Learner and lower-income students. Fewer—but still a majority of residents—back the governor’s plan to pay down the state’s debt and create a reserve,
As local governments scrambled to meet a Jan. 1 reform deadline for giving lower pensions to some new hires, a top target was a big increase bargained by police and firefighters during the last decade.
A CalPERS-sponsored bill, SB 400 in 1999, gave the California Highway Patrol a 50 percent pension increase. Then in
Bond insurers who want CalPERS to share the financial pain of the Stockton bankruptcy do not answer a key question in lengthy court filings: How would “bloated” and “overly rich” pensions be cut?
The insurers backing $250 million worth of Stockton general fund bonds argue that the city’s bankruptcy plan gives them major cuts
Gov. Brown pushed through legislation that cuts and caps public pensions for new employees, making a fix-it-to-save-it argument while bypassing the bargaining usually demanded by his labor allies for benefit changes.
Voters needed assurance the governor’s tax hike on the November ballot would not be eaten up by pension costs, and inaction might fuel
Optimism in California’s future is on the rise and more people believe the state is headed in the right direction. But one critical segment of the population rejects those positive views — aging whites.
The recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that nearly two-thirds of the whites surveyed –