The 2026-27 Budget: Re-Envisioning State Education Governance

Mar 18, 2026 - The significance of these examples is not simply that two different entities disagreed about policy, but that the governance structure did not provide a clear path for resolving these disagreements outside of extended litigation.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5165

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: University of California

Feb 26, 2026 - In 2024 ‑25, UC ’s actual core spending was 9.3   percent higher than it would have been had spending simply kept pace with inflation since 2015 ‑16. This faster growth reflects both increases in student enrollment and increases in underlying cost drivers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5143

The 2026-27 Budget: Governor’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel Tax Credit Proposal

Feb 24, 2026 - To the extent this is the case, the policy would result in “shuffling, ” or replacing one lower carbon fuel with another rather than simply increasing overall use, thus limiting any net environmental benefits.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5139

California’s Strong Revenue Trends Mask Looming Budget Risk

Jan 23, 2026 - After the dot-com bust and the Great Recession, it took four and five years, respectively, for revenues to recover. Incorporating revenue risk into the budget now, therefore, reflects prudence, not pessimism.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5104

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

Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program Review

Dec 2, 2025 - (In  other words, the DVBE must actually perform work and cannot simply lend its certification to another business to help win a bid.) This is called a “commercially useful function ” or “CUF ” violation.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5095

The 2026-27 Budget: California's Fiscal Outlook

Nov 19, 2025 - For California, the dot ‑com era —when stocks rose and then fell precipitously in response to widespread adoption of the internet —offers the most salient example. The internet has proven to be a transformative technology and, yet, the stock market ’s initial reaction was clearly overly exuberant.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091

Retail Theft in California: Looking Back at a Decade of Change

Jun 12, 2025 - These changes simply allow for them to be given longer incarceration terms. Increased Capacity to Detect and Respond to Retail Crime. As discussed below, various other changes are intended to create increased capacity to detect and respond to retail crime with a focus on more sophisticated retail crime rings and people who engage in repeated and/or high ‑volume thefts.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5055