The 2023-24 Budget: Improving Legislative Oversight of CalFire’s Emergency Fire Protection Budget

May 1, 2023 - E ‑Fund = Emergency Fund and CalFire = California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Assessment In this section, we assess the design of the budget for the E ‑Fund. We begin with a discussion of the key characteristics that the state ’s budgeting approach for emergency fire protection should display.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4765

Frequently Asked Questions About Wildfires in California

Jan 28, 2025 - However, as of this writing, we do not have comparabl e data on wildfire response spending over time across all of the relevant departments.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4952

Assessing California’s Climate Policies—Residential Electricity Rates in California

Jan 7, 2025 - Various emerging issues have the potential to affect residential electricity rates in California. These include the increasing stringency of the state ’s GHG reduction goals, growing demands for electricity in the state, and increasing wildfire ‑related costs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4950

The 2024-25 Budget: Sustainable Funding for the Department of Pesticide Regulation

Mar 5, 2024 - Moreover, DPR indicates that these activities —working with local communities on air pollution impacts caused by pesticides —are needed even in areas that do not currently participate in the A B  617 program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4873

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Oct 16, 2025 - Office of Emergency Services The budget provides $4.5  billion for the Governor ’s Office of Emergency Services (OES), primarily from federal funds and the General Fund. This amount represents a decrease of $4.2  billion (48  percent) from the revised 2024-25 level.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5081

The 2022-23 Budget: Water and Drought Response Proposals

Jan 31, 2022 - As warmer temperatures contribute to a lower snowpack and more prolonged dry stretches, in the coming years the state likely will want to increase its ability to capture and store water that falls from episodic wet storms when they do occur.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4509

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

Jan 13, 2025 - As such, if the Legislature wishes to have substantively more reserves available when responding to downturns or other emergencies, we would recommend also changing the formulas that set aside funds each year to increase how much is saved.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

What Can We Learn From How the State Responded to the Last Major Drought?

May 13, 2021 - Because certain drought conditions require immediate response but do not continue forever, many policy changes undertaken between 2012 and 2016 were authorized on a temporary basis, often by gubernatorial executive order or emergency departmental regulations.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4429

The 2026-27 Budget: Proposed Elimination of State Environmental Positions

Feb 17, 2026 - However, in many cases, the residual positions in question supported by special funds do not have a direct impact on the General Fund and thus do not factor directly into efforts to balance the budget.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5124

The 2026-27 Budget: Framework for Approaching the Natural Resources, Environmental Protection, and Agriculture Budget

Feb 10, 2026 - Reductions in federal staffing and capacity are leading to gaps in vital information that the state and local entities use to forecast water supply and floods, provide 24 ‑hour flood ‑emergency response, and manage  reservoirs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5116