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 - New Laws Make Tobacco Inspections More Expensive. The flavor ban and hemp ‑derived cannabinoid laws add to CDTFA ’s enforcement costs in several ways. For example, they make inspections more complex; make citations and seizures more likely; and raise projected costs for transporting, storing, and destroying seized products.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5132

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

Feb 19, 2026 - Printing a disclosure about Chapter  712 ’s deferment procedures is no longer relevant given that the option expired more than two years ago and is no longer available to property owners in the county.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5130

The 2025-26 Budget: CDTFA’s Tobacco Programs

Feb 14, 2025 - Why has the number of tobacco inspections declined so much? We have seen workload trends presented in terms of total inspections, seizures, citations, and appeals. The administration has noted that these measures can be difficult to interpret.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4966

Improving California’s Unemployment Insurance Program

Aug 8, 2022 - According to the administration ’s own review of EDD practices, “In interviews and observations, stories and anecdotes about fraud and/or suspected fraud were often used to explain why EDD could not act quickly to avoid the growth of the [claims] backlog. ” The added benefit of these lengthy reviews —that is, how much additional fraud they prevent —may be very small.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4615

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

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - 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

Local Sales Tax Rebates in 2023-24

Sep 16, 2025 - A small but nontrivial portion —1.7  percent —paid more than $120 per resident. Economic Conditions in Rebate-Paying Jurisdictions Slightly Better Than Statewide Average. Next, we examine some economic and demographic features of two groups of jurisdictions: (1)  those whose 2023-24 rebate payments totaled $1 to $20 per resident, and (2)  those whose rebate payments totaled more than $20 per resident.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5074

The 2024-25 Budget: Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development

Feb 20, 2024 - We discuss why in more detail below. California Competes Grants Remain a New, Unproven Model. Last spring, we discussed how recent research had shown promising results for the effectiveness of the traditional California Competes tax credit program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4846