The 2026-27 Budget: California's Fiscal Outlook

Nov 19, 2025 - As shown in Figure  1 , many signs of an overly exuberant stock market are present today: measures of whether stocks are “expensive ” are at historically high levels, investors are borrowing more to buy stocks, and households are more invested in the stock market than they have been in at least 70  years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091

The 2024-25 Budget: Initial Comments on the Governor’s May Revision

May 17, 2024 - Together, these scoring differences account for the roughly $27  billion difference in our office ’s accounting of the budget problem and the administration ’s scoring. While we would maintain that our approach more accurately reflects current law, these scoring differences do not reflect substantive differences in state ’s fiscal position.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4902

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

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 13, 2025 - The underlying budget dynamics today are particularly challenging for three reasons. First, revenues have not caught up with expenditures. Second, under our estimates, expenditure growth exceeds estimated revenue growth.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

The 2022-23 California Spending Plan: The State Appropriations Limit

Sep 30, 2022 - For more information about the history of the appropriations limit, and an analysis of why the SAL is impacting budget decisions today, see our previous reports, here: The State Appropriations Limit .
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4631

The 2024-25 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 13, 2024 - While not all of these amounts represent lower state spending over the long term, they do result in savings today at a cost in the future. As a result, we count them as spending‑related solutions. We estimate the proposed budget includes about $3 billion in reversions.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4825

Fiscal Outlook Addendum: CalPERS

Nov 18, 2015 - By rejecting the faster shift to a 6.5 percent discount rate, the CalPERS action mitigates some of the near-term budget risk for retirement funding we discuss in today 's Fiscal Outlook . As we state in the Fiscal Outlook (p. 44 of the pdf version), the plan adopted today by the CalPERS board "would not necessarily increase costs above our assumptions between now and 2019-20 " because it changes the system 's discount rates so gradually.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3308

The 2013-14 Budget: California Spending Plan - The 2013-14 Budget: California Spending Plan [Video]

Included are highlights from the administration 's official scoring of the budget package.
https://lao.ca.gov/Videos/Player?playlistId=84

The 2024-25 Budget: Multiyear Budget Outlook

May 23, 2024 - By pulling back substantially on one-time and temporary spending, as well as making some ongoing reductions, the Governor ’s May Revision shrinks the state ’s projected deficits from around $30  billion (our December 2023 estimates) to an average of less than $10  billion (our estimates today).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4907

The 2020-21 Budget: Structuring the Budget

Feb 10, 2020 - Forgoing spending today to maintain an operating surplus limits the Legislature ’s ability to address current priorities. In some cases the Legislature will prefer to address some programmatic needs today.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4150