California’s Strong Revenue Trends Mask Looming Budget Risk

Jan 23, 2026 - Throughout the mid-to-late 1990s, the stock market boomed over optimism around the Internet and dot-com start-ups. Strong tax revenue trends from this boom generated large budget surpluses that ultimately gave way to serious deficits once the bubble burst and PIT revenues declined nearly 30  percent.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5104

The 2026-27 Budget: Office of Emergency Services Next Generation 911 System

Feb 27, 2026 - Challenges Surfaced During Voice Transition. Between 2021 and 2024, 23 dispatch centers began transitioning voice calls to the regional Next Generation 911 system. Some reported routing problems, outages, and dropped calls.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5145

How Have Past Stock Market Downturns Affected Income Tax Revenue? [EconTax Blog]

Mar 9, 2026 - By most measures, the global financial crisis was more severe than the dot-com crash. The state 's unemployment rate, for example, peaked at 7 percent following the dot-com crash but reached nearly double that during the financial crisis and remained elevated for much longer.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/852

How Have Past Stock Market Downturns Affected Income Tax Revenue? [EconTax Blog]

Mar 9, 2026 - By most measures, the global financial crisis was more severe than the dot-com crash. The state 's unemployment rate, for example, peaked at 7 percent following the dot-com crash but reached nearly double that during the financial crisis and remained elevated for much longer.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/article/Detail/852

The 2026-27 Budget: California's Fiscal Outlook

Nov 19, 2025 - Consumers also continue to report historically low optimism about the economy ’s future. Consistent with these trends, collections from the sales tax and corporation tax (adjusted for recent policy changes) have posted below ‑average growth in recent months.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091

Artificial intelligence (AI) and child safety. [Ballot]

Dec 12, 2025 - The law excludes certain chatbots, such as those used solely for customer service, business operations, video game interactions limited to game-related topics, and stand-alone voice-activated virtual assistants that do not maintain relationships across interactions.
https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-025

The 2024-25 Budget: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Feb 22, 2024 - CDCR Is Required to Provide Free Voice Calling to People in Prison. Chapter  827 of 2022 (S B  1008 , Becker) specifies that CDCR shall provide accessible, functional voice calls free of charge. On January 1, 2023, CDCR began implementing this requirement by paying all charges accrued for voice calls.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4852

^[PDF] An LAO Higher Education “Compacts”: An Assessment

While emphasizing the need to strengthen the accountability and performance measures pro- posed by CSU and UC, the administration voiced its support for a multiyear funding agreement. Recently, representatives of the administration, UC, and CSU have met to negotiate a new fund- ing compact.
https://lao.ca.gov/1999/082699_compacts/082699_compacts.pdf

Oversight of certain public benefit artificial intelligence (AI) companies. [Ballot]

Jan 20, 2026 - The measure would have the following major fiscal effects: Increased state costs that would likely be in the tens of millions of dollars annually to establish and operate a new regulatory commission overseeing certain public benefit AI com panies.
https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-033

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Human Services

Nov 21, 2025 - After completing initial required job search activities, WTW participants (who had not gained employment via job search) generally participated in a skills and education assessment and worked with county staff to develop a WTW plan (during which they identified longer term WTW activities to participate in, such as education or training, communit y service, and subsidized employment).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5086/2