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

Jan 7, 2025 - As mentioned above, a key decision for CPUC and POU boards when they are structuring rates is how much of the revenue requirement to recover from fixed charges (a set amount per month) versus volumetric charges (an amount based on how much electricity the customer uses).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4950

California New Car Registrations: February 2025 [EconTax Blog]

Apr 8, 2025 - Californians Still Buying Fewer Cars Than Before the Pandemic. Statewide new car registrations declined steadily for several years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other measures of economic activity, registrations plummeted in March and April 2020.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/826

California New Car Registrations: February 2025 [EconTax Blog]

Apr 8, 2025 - Californians Still Buying Fewer Cars Than Before the Pandemic. Statewide new car registrations declined steadily for several years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other measures of economic activity, registrations plummeted in March and April 2020.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/article/Detail/826

Rethinking California's Reserve Policy

Apr 10, 2025 - Proposition  2 limits how much can be saved in the constitutional reserve to 10  percent of General Fund taxes. (There is no limit on how much can be saved on a discretionary basis.) Currently, this is about $21  billion.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5028

The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Justice

Feb 19, 2025 - We also recommend the Legislature provide DOJ with direction on how much of BFS operation revenues should come from local, state, and other agencies (such as one ‑third or one ‑half), as well as whether the Legislature plans to directly appropriate a specific General Fund amount to support a certain level of services for state agencies.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4972

Improving Legislative Oversight of Emergency Authorities

Apr 10, 2025 - Specifically, when a local emergency is declared by a city, county, or city/county governing body, CESA requires the emergency to be reviewed every 60 days by the governing body until the local emergency is terminated.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5029

Five Guidelines for Using Revenue Forecasts [EconTax Blog]

Feb 20, 2025 - Because no one knows how much revenue the state will collect next year, leaders must rely on revenue forecasts. Both our office and the Department of Finance (DOF) provide periodic revenue forecasts that can be used for this purpose.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/article/Detail/822

Five Guidelines for Using Revenue Forecasts [EconTax Blog]

Feb 20, 2025 - Because no one knows how much revenue the state will collect next year, leaders must rely on revenue forecasts. Both our office and the Department of Finance (DOF) provide periodic revenue forecasts that can be used for this purpose.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/822

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

The 2025-26 Budget: Medi-Cal Pharmacy Spending

Apr 3, 2025 - These classifications generally categorize drugs based on how they work, how they are used, and other factors. There are over 1,000 such classifications in the federal directory. Analysis Likely Omits Some Key Kinds of Drug Claims.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5026