Updating the California Necessities Index

Aug 14, 2025 - Second, like the current formula, alternatives should provide an intuitive way to judge changes in the cost of necessities. This provides transparency to benefit recipients when they assess changes to the funds they receive.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5065

Updating the California Necessities Index [Publication Details]

Aug 14, 2025 - Recent changes were made to the publication of statistics required to calculate the California Necessities Index, which is used to adjust certain benefit rates and cost-of-living adjustments. In this brief, we provide details on the changes and evaluate alternatives for the index that require only currently available data and conform to the original intent of the index.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5065

The 2026-27 Budget: State Mandate—Disclosure Requirements and Deferral of Property Taxation

Feb 19, 2026 - The Commission determined that Los Angeles County incurred reimbursable costs processing deferment requests and adding the required disclosure to property tax bills. The Commission determined that the county incurred a total amount of about $30,000 in back-year costs (incurred between 2022 and 2024), and about $8,000 in ongoing costs thereafter.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5130

The 2026-27 Budget: California Competes Extension

Mar 18, 2026 - Second, any unawarded credits from the previous fiscal year can be added to the pool of available credits for the current fiscal year. Credit Pool Has Ballooned to over $923  million for the Current Year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5162

The 2026-27 Budget: CDTFA’s Cannabis and Tobacco Programs

Feb 23, 2026 - In 2026 ‑27, $2.8  million of these appropriations would come from the Compliance Fund to pay for costs in the Tobacco Licensing Program, while $0.5  million would come from the Cannabis Tax Fund to pay for costs in the Cannabis Tax Program. $0.2  million of these costs would shift from the Compliance Fund to the Cannabis Tax Fund starting in 2027 ‑28.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5132

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Oct 16, 2025 - Control Sections 90.00 and 90.01 During the special session called by the Governor, the Legislature added Control Sections 90.00 and 90.01 to the 2024-25 Budget Act providing up to $2.5  billion one-time from the General Fund for response and recovery costs related to the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5081/

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

Mar 18, 2025 - If the Legislature approves this proposal, we recommend adding explicit requi rements to assess a grant applicant ’s inability to use tax credits. California Regional Initiative for Social Enterprises Grant Program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5018

Evaluating State Economic Stimulus Proposals

Feb 1, 2021 - How Large Are the Administrative Costs? All programs have costs for public administration. The administrative costs of an economic stimulus program ideally should be a small share of the overall cost.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4331

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - This creates a once ‑annual cost on employers applied to each new hire. As Figure  10 shows with some illustrative numbers, this employment tax raises the cost of adding a new employee to a business and that cost is proportionately higher for a low wage worker than a high wage worker.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

The 2025-26 Budget: Update on Implementation of New Firearm and Ammunition Tax

Feb 19, 2025 - In the absence of this loan, CDTFA absorbed Chapter  231 implementation costs within its existing budget. Funds Allocated to CDTFA and CalVIP. Chapter  231 first requires the deduction of CDTFA costs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4970