The 2026-27 Budget: California Competes Extension

Mar 18, 2026 - In earlier years, individual awards were much smaller and more numerous, whereas recent rounds have a much smaller number of awards that are typically worth several million dollars each. Changes made to the program in 2018 likely explain much of this trend.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5162

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: CDTFA’s Cannabis and Tobacco Programs

Feb 23, 2026 - Our analysis of these issues in the next two sections revolves around two overarching questions: How much should CDTFA spend on cannabis and tobacco enforcement? How should the state pay for these activities?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5132

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - While it is reasonable to expect that some workers would make too much money for UI to replace half of their earnings, California ’s benefit levels only meet the federal wage replacement standard for half of the state ’s workers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

The 2025-26 Budget: CDTFA’s Tobacco Programs

Feb 14, 2025 - We do not know how much of the recent revenue decline is due to greater tax avoidance and how much is due to lower actual tobacco consumption. To the extent that tax avoidance could be a large part of the story, the size of the revenue loss highlights the importance of efforts to enforce tobacco tax laws.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4966

Tax Credit Expansions in the American Rescue Plan

Apr 13, 2021 - As Figure  2 below shows, the 2021 credit percentage starts to phase down at a much higher income level than under prior law. The 2021 provision also includes an income limit, as the credit percentage phases down again for filers with income over $400,000.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4410

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: California’s Film Tax Credit

Feb 28, 2025 - As seen in Figure  2, inflation ‑adjusted wages in the industry have not changed much in recent years, nor has California ’s wage premium relative to the rest of the country (around 20  percent). State ’s National Market Share Has Declined.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5000

Updating the California Necessities Index

Aug 14, 2025 - However, the remaining categories —food , apparel, transportation, and rent —include a much broader set of goods than the discontinued category. While we cannot predict the future publication decisions of the BLS, it will be easier for the statistical agencies to obtain reliable data on prices of goods in these categories than it will be for household fuels and other utilities, meaning it is more likely they will continue to publish these statistics.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5065

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