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516 Publications Found
February 25, 2020 - One of the priorities of the Governor’s proposed 2020‑21 budget is to improve information security (IS) across state government entities. The proposed budget includes resource requests for the entities that govern IS for the entire state to increase their operational capacity, as well as resource requests for individual government entities to expand and improve their IS programs. This budget and policy post provides relevant information about state IS strategy to help the Legislature consider each of these requests.
February 19, 2020 - In this post, we provide a background on employment laws, take an initial look at worker outcomes in the wage claim process, and highlight several opportunities to improve the process. We also assess the Governor’s proposal to hire additional staff at the Department of Industrial Relations to reduce delays that have recently begun to affect wage claims.
February 11, 2020 - The 2020‑21 Governor’s budget includes two labor proposals related to Chapter 296 of 2019 (AB 5, Gonzalez), a new law that limits what types of work businesses can hire independent contractors to do. In this post, we provide a background on the new law, discuss how many workers it might affect, and make recommendations about the workload proposals at the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the Employment Development Department (EDD).
January 24, 2020 - SB 1 has increased state funding for local streets and roads by $1.3 billion—a doubling of the previous level of shared revenues—with additional revenue increases projected in current and future years.
January 22, 2020 - The 2020-21 Governor’s Budget includes 18 budget proposals related to labor and employment programs. This post provides a high-level overview of these proposals. Our office plans to evaluate several of these proposals more closely in the coming weeks.
January 9, 2020 - This post summarizes the current efforts being undertaken by state departments to assess the vulnerability of state facilities to the future impacts of climate change. We find that most state agencies are only in the early stages of conducting such assessments, which are a critical first step of a multistep process of planning to reduce risks to state assets and public services. We provide a number of oversight questions the Legislature can use to monitor what progress is being made by individual state departments.
December 17, 2019 - In this post, we discuss a key interaction between sales taxes and other taxes on cannabis retailers—in particular, local business taxes. Due to this opaque, counterintuitive interaction, the overall tax rate on cannabis is slightly higher than it appears to be. We recommend that the Legislature make statutory changes to address this issue.
December 17, 2019 - In this post, we describe some of the similarities and differences between taxes on cannabis and taxes on other products in California. Our estimates suggest that taxes on certain cannabis products are roughly comparable to taxes on distilled spirits but much higher than taxes on beer and wine. California’s state and local governments generally tax cannabis—including medical cannabis—more heavily than other medicines. In some instances, however, exemptions can make tax rates on medical cannabis comparable to tax rates on other medicines.
November 21, 2019 - This post is part of our November Outlook series intended to help the Legislature plan for the budget year ahead. In this post, we provide background on the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) child care program, discuss our projections of future CalWORKs child care costs, and identify various risks and uncertainties that could affect these future costs.
In addition to this report, you can find the main California's Fiscal Outlook report along with a collection of other fiscal outlook material on our fiscal outlook budget page.
November 21, 2019 - This post describes the key factors driving recent spending increases on Cal Grants, the state’s main form of student financial aid. It also discusses our Cal Grant spending estimates through 2023-24.
In addition to this report, you can find the main California's Fiscal Outlook report along with a collection of other fiscal outlook material on our fiscal outlook budget page.
November 20, 2019 - This post describes the current debt service ratio in the 2019-20 fiscal year.
In addition to this report, you can find the main California's Fiscal Outlook report along with a collection of other fiscal outlook material on our fiscal outlook budget page.
November 20, 2019 - This web post provides detail on our projections and assumptions related to General Fund spending in Medi-Cal for the years 2019-20 through 2023-24. In the near term, we project Medi-Cal spending to grow to $23.5 billion in 2020-21. Over the long term, we project General Fund spending in Medi-Cal to grow to up to $27.6 billion.
In addition to this report, you can find the main California's Fiscal Outlook report along with a collection of other fiscal outlook material on our fiscal outlook budget page.
October 17, 2019 - This post describes the debt and liability payments made as part of the 2019-20 budget package.
October 17, 2019 - The 2019-20 budget includes $3.5 billion for certain phases of roughly 200 different capital outlay projects across 20 different departments.
October 17, 2019 - From the General Fund, the 2019-20 spending plan provides $26.4 billion for health programs and $15.5 billion for human services programs—an increase of 18 percent and 12.6 percent, respectively, over estimated 2018-19 General Fund spending in these two policy areas. Major health-related policy actions include the reauthorization of a tax on managed care organizations (which will reduce the above-noted General Fund health spending by $1 billion, pending federal approval) and over $400 million General Fund for state-funded subsidies for health insurance purchased on the individual market through Covered California. Major human services-related policy actions include General Fund support to increase CalWORKS cash grants and most developmental services provider rates, and to restore previously reduced service hours in the In-Home Supportive Services program. The spending plan also reflects the deposit of $700 million into a safety net reserve (bringing its balance to $900 million) that can be used for future CalWORKs and/or Medi-Cal expenditures.