March 3, 2017 - The Governor’s budget proposes $11 million in special funds and 82.5 positions, phased in over three years, for the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement to pursue additional investigations of labor standards violations. In this analysis, we provide our assessment of the Governor’s proposal and raise several concerns that we believe should be addressed before any funding and staffing are approved.
March 25, 2016 - This post addresses the Governor’s 2016-17 budget proposal related to the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). The post provides background on PAGA, describes and assesses the Governor’s proposal, and outlines our recommendations for the Legislature’s consideration. Specifically, we recommend that the Legislature approve requested funding and positions and adopt portions of proposed trailer bill language that require additional information on PAGA proceedings be provided to the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. We recommend that the Legislature reject remaining proposed trailer bill language in favor of consideration in a separate policy bill process.
February 26, 2014 - Traditionally, the state has reimbursed local educational agencies (LEAs) for performing mandated activities by requiring them to submit detailed documentation of their costs. In recent years, the state has tried to simplify this process by creating two alternative reimbursement structures. The reasonable reimbursement methodology (RRM) provides reimbursement for a particular mandate using a formula developed in a quasi-judicial forum. The education mandates block grants (one for schools and one for community colleges) provide reimbursement for all active education mandates using a per-student rate established in the budget. Whereas the rarely used RRM process has been very adversarial (once involving litigation) and resulted in long reimbursement delays, nearly all LEAs have chosen to participate in the block grants. Given their overlapping purposes and the comparative advantages of the block grants, we recommend the Legislature repeal the RRM for education mandates.
October 5, 2020 - The 2020-21 Budget Act includes several new initiatives and policy changes related to labor and employment programs. This post provides a high-level overview of the state’s major labor and employment programs and highlights the major labor issues in the budget package, including provisions related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
February 20, 2002 - Analysis of the 2002-03 Budget Bill, Resources Chapter
January 12, 2010 - This report presents a summary of reports received by the LAO from California counties on construction projects that they completed with the design-build delivery method. Although it was difficult to draw conclusions from the reports received about the effectiveness of design-build compared to other project delivery methods, we do not think that the reports provide any evidence that would discourage the Legislature from granting design-build authority to local agencies on an ongoing basis. In doing so, however, we recommend the Legislature consider some changes such as creating uniform design-build statute, eliminating cost limitations, and requiring project cost to be a larger factor in awarding the design-build contract.
January 7, 2014 - This report presents a summary of reports received by the LAO from California counties on construction projects that they completed with the design-build project delivery method. We find that it is difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of design-build compared to other project delivery methods (such as design-bid-build) based on the reports we received. Nonetheless, when the Legislature next considers extending design-build authority for counties or other local agencies, we recommend that it consider some changes such as creating a uniform design-build statute for agencies that have design-build authority, eliminating cost limitations, and requiring project cost to be a larger factor in awarding design-build contracts.
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).
February 22, 1995 - Analysis of the 1995-96 Budget Bill, Business and Labor Chapter
December 15, 1998 - We examine 12 specific business practices frequently used by the private sector to develop, acquire, and implement information technology. We recommend that these best practices be used on state information technology projects, unless a project has unique characteristics that warrant exceptions.