It’s Getting a Bit More Crowded in the Golden State Lifeboat

Often overlooked in what’s come to be the doom-and-gloom budget forecast of the Legislative Analyst’s Fiscal Outlook is the demographics data, which is on Page 22 of the PDF version of the report. Demographics in the nation’s most populous state has a major impact on fiscal issues. More Californians mean more people using state services, more people paying vehicle license fees, more people paying sales taxes or income taxes. More children mean more public school pupils. More aging Baby Boomers mean more persons in need of home-care, more people taping retirement savings, more people enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s [....]

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As if the Legislative Analyst’s Report Wasn’t Grim Enough…

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today released his monthly report covering California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements in October. Receipts for the month were $232.3 million, 4.6 percent above the recently enacted state budget estimates. “The record 100-day budget stalemate pushed us past the point of having enough cash on hand to pay more than $8 billion in outstanding bills that came due when the budget was signed,” said  Chiang. “Thankfully, the state received the proceeds from an interim cash flow borrowing that allowed us to start paying the $5.5 billion in payments delayed by the budget for tax refunds, community colleges [....]

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How Ugly Will Next Year’s Budget Be? Find Out November 10

Recently, Assembly Speaker John Perez predicted the state might face a budget shortfall of between $12 billion and $15 billion during the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011. Hopefully, the Los Angeles Democrat is right — although evidence suggests otherwise. Californians will know whether Perez is or not on Wednesday, November 10, when the Legislative Analyst publishes its 2010 fiscal outlook, which examines the state’s economy and projects the condition of California’s budget for the next five years. The analyst’s November 2009 Fiscal Outlook paints a very grim picture for the entire first term of Jerry Brown’s governorship. According to the 2009, forecast, the [....]

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What Have We Learned Over the Past 2065 Years?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

Cicero, 55 BC

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A Look at How Recent State Budgets Treat the Public Schools

Last June 22, California’s Capitol presented a comparison created by Michael Hulsizer, head of legislative affairs for the office of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, of the state’s general fund revenue growth and public school spending from July 1, 1998 through the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2011. That comparison was based on the revenue estimates used by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in his revised May budget proposal. Hulsizer has created a new comparison using the numbers contained in the final budget signed October 8 – a record 100 days late. As Hulsizer notes, the tallies change, in some areas “quite significantly.” In large [....]

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Speculation -Mainly Idle – On Members of Jerry Brown’s Team

With the election concluded, now begins one of the Sacramento insiders’ favorite parlor games, guessing who might be appointed to key posts in the new Jerry Brown administration. Given the new governor’s mercurial nature, its hazardous to predict what he’ll do from one minute to the next, let alone appoint as chief of staff or cabinet secretaries. One persistent rumor is that he’ll have no chief of staff, a rumor Brown helps to fuel. The Democratic governor-elect was quoted in the Los Angeles Times November 3 saying he wanted to “review the very nature” of what the governor’s chief of [....]

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The Confessions of a Women’s Conference Escort — Part 2

A former Bank of America that opened in 1906, L’Opera, the 101 Pine Ave. Long Beach restaurant where Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has dinner the night before First Lady Maria Shriver’s Women’s Conference, is swamped by conference attendees. Nevertheless, the hostess accommodates both O’Connor and her team of marshals. Dinner conversation is varied. We’re joined by M.C. Sungaila, a Los Angeles appellate lawyer, who recounts what she’s learned from the “OpEd Project,” whose intent is to increase the number of thought pieces written by women. The statistics on the project’s website are telling. Bylines at the New York Times: 77 [....]

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