Rethinking California's Reserve Policy

Apr 10, 2025 - Some scenarios are unfavorable ones, while others are more favorable (see Figure  2 ). In an unfavorable scenario, for example, the state could face a series of more moderately sized recessions in close proximity to one another.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5028

The 2026-27 Budget: California's Fiscal Outlook

Nov 19, 2025 - This year, for example, our outlook reflects our best estimates of the effects of H.R. 1: One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the state budget but does not make assumptions about future federal policy changes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091

Rethinking California's Reserve Policy [Publication Details]

Apr 10, 2025 - Reserves allow the state to ensure stable funding for its services over time, even when revenue fluctuates unpredictably. Over the last few years, the state has indeed experienced significant fluctuations—large surpluses followed by significant deficits. This volatility has prompted interest in changes to the state’s reserve policy.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5028

Tempered Expectations

Dec 9, 2019 - A majority of the difference lies in the distinction between the ongoing and one-time components of the surplus. The former is an annual amount that allows lawmakers to make recurring expenses, while the latter is available in one year to be spent or saved.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4122

Building Reserves to Prepare for a Recession

Mar 7, 2018 - These include options outside of the rainy day fund, as well as other budgetary tools that have the same key attributes of reserves. Relative to what the Governor now proposes, using one of these alternatives would help make the state even better prepared for a coming recession.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3769

The 2026-27 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 12, 2026 - That said, recent budgets have set the SFEU bet ween $3.5  billion and $4.5  billion, so the Governor ’s budget proposal to set the balance to $4.5  billion is generally in line with recent policy.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5101

An Extraordinary Moment in California's Fiscal History

Apr 11, 2019 - While our recommendations to the Legislature regarding the Governor ’s various proposals are detailed in our more than two dozen reports that make up our 2019-20 budget series , we can generally categorize them in five main ways.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4003

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Spending Plan

Oct 16, 2025 - In addition to this report, we will release a series of issue ‑specific, online posts that give more detail on the major actions in the budget package. The Budget Problem For the third year in a row, the state faced a budget problem, or deficit.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5079

The 2023-24 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Nov 8, 2023 - Chapter 45 of 2023 (AB 127, Committee on Budget) also requires CDT to update the middle-mile network map on its website within 60 days of any contract to build or lease middle-mile broadband infrastructure.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4814

The 2016-17 Budget: Initial Comments on the Governor’s May Revision

May 15, 2016 - As it crafts the state budget, the Legislature may choose its own preferred mix of reserves, one-time spending, and ongoing budget commitments using these discretionary resources. Figure 3 Governor ’s Key Choices in Allocating Discretionary General Fund Resources General Fund Budget Commitments by Type (In Billions) Reserves Makes extra rainy day fund reserve deposit $2.0
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3460