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Budget and Policy Post

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The 2025-26 Budget: State Mandate—Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board

May 5, 2025 - In this budget post, we discuss a municipal stormwater mandate issued by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board in 2009 for local governments in Orange County.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Scholarshare Investment Board

April 30, 2025 - In this post, we analyze the Governor’s budget proposal to provide the Scholarshare Investment Board with three additional employee positions to support the California Kids Investment and Development Savings program.


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Preliminary Assessment of Significant Changes to State's Technology Project Approval and Oversight Processes

April 29, 2025 - This post discusses a new process introduced by the administration to plan, develop, and implement generative artificial intelligence projects—the Project Delivery Lifecycle—and its potential impacts on legislative oversight of technology projects.


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The 2025-26 Budget: SB 678 County Probation Grant Program

April 11, 2025 - In this post, we assess the Governor’s proposed changes to the Community Corrections Performance Incentive grant program, commonly referred to as the SB 678 grant program, and provide our recommendations to modify the Governor’s proposal to better achieve the goals of the program.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Financial Protection and Innovation

April 3, 2025 - In this post, we assess administration-proposed trailer bill language that would increase certain fees charged by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation and make recommendations to help ensure the department has the resources it needs to meet its oversight and regulatory mission.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Real Estate

March 19, 2025 - In this post, we assess key drivers of the structural imbalance of the Department of Real Estate’s primary source of funding—the state Real Estate Fund—and make recommendations to help ensure solvency.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development

March 18, 2025 - The Governor’s budget includes several proposals under the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz). In this post we evaluate and provide recommendations for three of these proposals: California Competes Grants, California Regional Initiative for Social Enterprises Grant Program, and CHIPS.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Community College Facilities

March 18, 2025 - This post assesses the Governor’s proposals to fund community college capital outlay projects under Proposition 2, the new education facilities bond.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Service and Community Engagement

March 11, 2025 - This post contains assessments and recommendations related to two proposed budget augmentations: the College Corps program and a new Belonging Campaign.


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The 2025-26 Budget: California State Library

March 7, 2025 - In this post, we provide background on the State Library and analyze the Governor's budget proposals.


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The 2025-26 Budget: The California State Payroll System IT Project

March 7, 2025 - This post provides issues for legislative consideration, as well as questions for the Legislature to ask, ahead of an expected May Revision budget proposal to fund development and implementation of the California State Payroll System information technology project.


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The 2025-26 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

March 6, 2025 - This post provides an overview of the Governor’s proposed 2025-26 budget for In-Home Supportive Services, provides updates on some of the most recent prior-year policy changes, and raises questions and issues for the Legislature to consider.


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The 2025-26 Budget: Oversight of Encampment Resolution Funding

March 5, 2025 - The Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) program provides grants for local communities to address homeless encampments by funding housing and other services to the people living there. To assist the Legislature in its fiscal oversight role of this large and multiyear program, this post: (1) provides data on the size of the population of people experiencing homelessness in California and recent state spending on housing and homelessness; (2) describes the ERF program’s goals, funding, and reporting requirements; (3) provides an update on ERF grantee awards, spending, and outcomes data available as of this writing; and (4) provides an assessment and makes an associated recommendation to the Legislature.


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The 2025-26 Budget: CWS-CARES

March 5, 2025 - This post provides our analysis of the administration’s 2025-26 proposal for the Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System information technology project. In the post, we summarize the current status of the project, assess the funding proposal and upcoming project risks and workload, and offer the Legislature recommendations to improve how it funds and oversees the project.


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The 2025-26 Budget: MCO Tax and Proposition 35

February 26, 2025 - This post provides an overview of the Proposition 35 spending plan under the 2025-26 Governor’s budget and raises key oversight issues for the Legislature.