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

State Assistance to Businesses in Response to COVID-19

Jan 4, 2024 - Smaller metro areas —like Ukiah, Crescent City, and Truckee —received much less in both types of assistance. One outlier in this trend is Napa, which received considerably more PPP ‑related loan forgiveness per business than any other area of any size.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4824

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: State Departments’ Operational Efficiencies (Control Sections 4.05 and 4.12)

Feb 19, 2025 - Affected Funding Sources Expenditures from what specific “other funds, ” if any, are expected to be reduced and by how much? What effect, if any, will identified savings to special funds expenditures have on fees and taxes levied to support the funds?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4975

The 2025-26 Budget: Department of Financial Protection and Innovation

Apr 3, 2025 - For example, the proposed increase in new franchise registration fees —from $675 to $1,865 —would set California fees at much higher levels than other states. In other states with franchise registration fees, new franchise registration fees range from $250 to about $750.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5025

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

The 2025-26 Budget: The California State Payroll System IT Project

Mar 7, 2025 - The Legislature will need to understand and monitor how DARTs and other change management activities are preparing departments for adoption of a new payroll system. Questions for the Legislature to ask include: How will SCO and CalHR work with DARTs to ensure their department ’s business processes align with the new requirements and technical implementation of CSPS?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5011

The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Service and Community Engagement

Mar 11, 2025 - Specifically, we are uncertain how the administration is defining and evaluating Californians ’ “sense of belonging, ” which makes determining how to assess and respond to such a potential challenge exceptionally difficult.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5015

The 2023-24 Budget: California Volunteers Proposed Program Expansions

Mar 1, 2023 - While CA  Volunteers provides some broad guidelines for how funds can be used, the selected cities and counties also have some latitude for designing their services at the local level, including what specific job responsibilities the youth would fulfill.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4723

Federal COVID-19-Related Funding to California

Apr 28, 2020 - For example, in some cases, federal funding will be provided on a competitive grant basis, meaning that the eligible entities will not know how much funding they will receive until the grant applications are accepted.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4226