February 19, 2013 - In this report, we review the Governor’s 2013-14 budget proposals for various resources and environmental protection departments and programs, including the Department of Water Resources, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Department of Parks and Recreation, California Energy Commission, and the Air Resources Board. We identify concerns with several of the proposals and make recommendations for legislative consideration. In some cases, we identify proposals that we think should be rejected or modified. In particular, we point out several budget proposals that would impact state expenditures in future years. We also note that the proposed budget includes several proposals to use certain revenues for different activities that may not be legally allowable given the revenue source. In addition, we identify several issues in the report that we believe merit greater legislative oversight, including a new surcharge on investor-owned utility electricity bills that the California Public Utilities Commission has been collecting since January 2012 without legislative authorization.
June 7, 2011 - This document is a partially updated list of nearly 300 state boards and commissions. This list is based on a search for state boards and commissions that our office completed in 2009. In updating this list, we removed any entities that we know have been abolished since 2009. We post this list with the caveat that Legislative Counsel and the administration have not reviewed it. Without their review, we do not know whether this list includes all state boards and commissions currently in existence. It may be possible, for example, that some boards and commissions have been eliminated or created since 2009 without our knowledge.