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1,025 Publications Found
January 3, 2006 - There has been much interest recently both by the Governor and the Legislature in investing in the state’s infrastructure and using bonds to do so. This reflects both the state’s large current and future infrastructure needs and the key role that bonds will inevitably have to play in financing them. This brief answers a number of common questions related to using bonds to fund infrastructure. These questions include the overall nature of the infrastructure needs facing California, the different options for paying for them, and key issues and concerns associated with using more bonds.review infrastructure
December 7, 2005 - Chapter 794, Statutes of 2002 (AB 1401, Thomson), directed the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) to evaluate the effectiveness of the measure in providing heath care coverage to individuals who are otherwise unable to obtain health benefits (the "hard-to-insure"). While we found there is now only limited information available to assess the outcome of various aspects of AB 1401, we concluded the measure has increased the state’s capacity to help hard-to-insure individuals access health coverage using the same level of state resources. Based upon our evaluation, we present several recommendations to improve the program by potentially reducing its costs to enrollees and the state.
October 20, 2005 - In this piece, we summarize key provisions of Three Strikes and You’re Out; discuss the evolution of the law in the courts; estimate the impact of the law on state and local criminal justice systems; and evaluate to what extent the law achieved its original goals.
September 30, 2005 - Proposition 76 on the November Special Statewide Election ballot is a complex measure that would have far-reaching effects on the state budget. In this report, we describe the measure’s key provisions and provide answers to some of the questions that have been raised about its potential impacts on state and local governments. The report has been prepared to facilitate testimony at a legislative joint overview hearing on the measure.
June 30, 2005 - Where does the funding for higher education come from? How are costs divided among various groups (such as undergraduate and graduate students)? What role do student fees play? How is financial aid funded? How does the state decide how many students to fund in a given year? The purpose of this primer is to address these and other questions related to the funding of higher education in California, so as to aid policymakers and other interested parties in their deliberations and decision making.
May 9, 2005 -
This paper summarizes our recent report on the success and shortcomings of high schools in California. High school represents a critical phase in the educational
development of K-12 students. Our report examines high schools through the lens
of three groups of high school students.
Our Findings
Dropouts (Students Who Fail to Graduate).
About 30 percent of the entering ninth grade class fails to graduate on time.
Research and data suggest that the factors leading to student dropouts are in
place by the time students enter ninth grade. Despite decades of trying,
research has not identified programs or services that consistently reduce
dropout rates.
The "General" Track (Students Who Graduate Without
Qualifying for a Four-Year University). This includes about 45 percent
of entering ninth grade students. About one-half of this group attends college
after graduation and the other one-half enters the labor force. Research and
data indicate that many in this group do not have clear postgraduation goals,
which prevents these students from using
high school most effectively to make a smoother transition to adult life.
The "University" Track (Students Who Graduate and
Qualify for Admission to the State’s Public Four-Year Universities).
These students account for about one-quarter of entering ninth grade
students. Entering college freshmen frequently lack the English or mathematics
skills required for study at the university level. Higher education admissions
and placement policies contribute to the problem, as they fail to clearly
communicate the skill levels needed for success in college.
Our Recommendations
Despite considerable differences in the problems facing
these groups, several themes emerge in our recommendations that are consistent
across the groups. Our recommendations address the problems experienced by high
school students by strengthening accountability, improving information, and
increasing flexibility.
Accountability
We recommend the Legislature "fine
tune" accountability programs by:
Information
We also suggest several ways the
Legislature could employ information to help make high schools more responsive
to student needs by:
Flexibility
Flexibility also is a theme of our
report. Improvements could be made by:
The Bottom Line
While many critical factors are outside of the state’s
control, we think our recommendations provide a strategic approach for how the
state can contribute to improving high schools.
April 12, 2005 - California's wildland fire protection system involves multiple levels of government, requires significant levels of personnel and equipment, and relies on a complex series of interagency agreements. This primer is intended to assist the Legislature in understanding how wildland fire protection services are delivered and the major cost drivers affecting spending. We also make recommendations for increasing legislative oversight of state expenditures for wildland fire protection and for reducing these expenditures.
March 15, 2005 - The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, also referred to as the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) makes significant changes to the federal Medicare program. The implementation of the Medicare drug benefit component of MMA, known as Part D, is likely to cause significant net financial losses to the state for years and have other major programmatic impacts on Medi-Cal. We recommend some limited actions and strategies the Legislature can take to address these potential problems.
February 17, 2005 - State agencies purchase about $4.2 billion annually in prescription and nonprescription drugs as part of their responsibilities to deliver health care services to their program recipients. Our review—which focused on 10 percent of these purchases—found several deficiencies in the state's procurement of drugs which lead to it paying higher costs than necessary. We make a number of recommendations to correct these procurement and administrative deficiencies which would, if implemented, generate savings totaling tens of millions of dollars annually.
February 10, 2005 - Our analysis indicates that the Governor's California Rx plan for drug discounts for the uninsured provides a reasonable starting point for the development of such a program. However, we propose, among other changes, that in the event that drug makers fail to make good on their promises for significant price concessions, an automatic trigger would phase-out the proposed voluntary approach to obtaining rebates from drug manufacturers, and be replaced by an alternative strategy likely to result in greater discounts on more drugs for consumers.
A related report—Lowering the State's Costs For Prescription Drugs—which addresses the state's purchasing of drugs for its own programs, will be released shortly.
February 8, 2005 - Proposition 98 is a complex formula for setting a minimum annual funding level for K-12 schools and community colleges. This primer is intended to assist the Legislature in understanding the basic "mechanics" of the proposition and showing how it has affected school spending since its passage in 1988. We also describe the Governor's proposed changes to Proposition 98 and discuss our concerns about how they would diminish legislative budget authority.
February 3, 2005 - We examine the advantages and disadvantages of the design-build method compared to the traditional design-bid-build method and find that design-build can be a useful option for some public construction projects. We make recommendations for statutory changes to provide that option while preserving the public's confidence in the procurement process, quality control, and access for small contractors to public contracts.
January 31, 2005 - We suggest a number of measures to address workload growth in CHP's road patrol program. Most of these changes give the Legislature the opportunity to increase in-view patrols with existing levels of funding for CHP. Specifically, by making various changes to CHP's current policies, processes, and procedures—as well as to the way it allocates and uses uniformed and nonuniformed staff—the department can free up substantial resources, potentially in the hundreds of uniformed officers, for proactive patrols, thereby enhancing CHP's road patrol service throughout the state.