Tax Collections Falling Off, Bigger Budget Hole More Likely

 With five more days left in the month, state income tax collections are dropping off, increasing the odds the state’s budget hole will grow.

As of April 25, the Franchise Tax Board has received just under $6.5 billion in payments this month — $1.9 billion less than Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget predicts the agency will receive through April 30.    Read more »

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Today’s Latin Lesson is What a U.S. Supreme Court Decision Is

Lex Terrae

“The Law of the Land”    Read more »

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The Legislature Decides If the Budget It Passes Is Balanced, Court Rules

If lawmakers say they have passed a balanced budget – even if it isn’t — by June 15, they won’t have their pay docked under a tentative ruling by a Sacramento Superior Court judge issued April 24 (See Page 7).

Superior Court Judge David Brown said the Legislature has the sole authority to pass a budget and, under the constitution, if lawmakers say their budget is balanced – it is.    Read more »

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Capital Improvements Sought at California State Fair Grounds

WHEREAS, The arts, crafts and vocational work of the California schools is of such high quality as to make it a matter of state pride and

WHEREAS, The present Educational building of the State Fair Grounds, Sacramento has become entirely inadequate to house the multitude of exhibits produced and offered for exhibit by the students of the elementary, junior high and senior high schools of our state; and

WHEREAS, The exhibits now offered are crowded through lack of space in a manner inimical to the best interests of their educational value, and

WHEREAS, The heat of the day and the dampness of the night are enervating to health of employees and exhibitors and destructive to woodwork and other exhibits in the large tent annex of said Educational Building; therefore be it

Resolved, That the Elementary Principals’’ Association of California, Northern Section, in annual convention assembled do hereby petition the Legislature of the State of California and the directors of the State Agricultural Society to make such provision as may be necessary toward the erection of a new and larger building for the purpose of exhibiting the arts and crafts and vocational work of the pupils and students of the schools of California.     Read more »

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It’s The Bard’s Birthday — Or April 23 Is When it’s Celebrated Anyway

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more.    Read more »

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State Tax Payments Roll in But More Refunds Than Expected

As of April 23, the Franchise Tax Board has received  just over $6 billion in stat e income tax payments this month — $2.4 billion less than Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget predicts the agency will receive through April 30.

The Democratic governor has already acknowledged he and lawmakers must fill a budget hole that’s at least $800 million larger than he estimated in January – about $10 billion.    Read more »

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All Kinds of Ways to Celebrate Earth Day

In The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is told, “Plastics.”

For Earth Day, BevMo says, “Cork.”

On April 16, the wine, beer and distilled spirits retailer announced that, starting April 22, its 115 stores will recycle used corks.

Cork has been a “mainstay of wine for more than 400 years,” BevMo says in its press release.    Read more »

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The First Detective Story

From The Writer’s Almanac:

“It was on (April 20,) 1841 that the first ‘detective story’ was published: The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe.  

“In the story, C. August Dupin reads about the murder of a mother and daughter in a Paris street. The police are baffled and Dupin decides to offer his services.    Read more »

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April 20 is a National “Day of Silence”

Friday April 20 is a national “Day of Silence” sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

For 12 years, the group has sponsored this event, which asks college, high school and middle school students to take a day-long vow of silence to peaceably “protest the discrimination and harassment – in effect, silencing – experienced” by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.    Read more »

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April 19 Tax Collections: Mumm’s But No Dom Perignon Yet

April 19 marked another large haul for state tax collectors as the Franchise Tax Board received $1.1 billion in payments.

Those collections lifted the board’s total April receipts to a hair over $5 billion, — $3.4 billion less than Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget predicts the agency will receive through April 30.    Read more »

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