The 2022-23 Budget: Analysis of the Care Economy Workforce Development Package

Mar 10, 2022 - Despite these enrollment declines, because of the way AEP and community colleges are funded, adult education providers have not seen reductions in their funding. As a result, AEP consortium members likely have significant capacity next year to serve more students without the Governor ’s proposed augmentation.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4572

The 2022-23 Budget: Assessing Proposals to Address Unemployment Insurance Fraud

Feb 15, 2022 - Specifically, federal law allowed self ‑employed workers to backdate new PUA  claims to when they lost work, meaning a first fraudulent check could total several thousand dollars. Second, whereas EDD typically verifies claims against employer payroll records, it could not do so for self ‑employed workers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4542

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 16 (Physicians)

Sep 7, 2023 - Figure 1 shows that, controlling for inflation, the Receiver’s actions significantly increased the average Unit 16 base pay. The figure also shows that Unit 16’s average base pay generally has kept pace with inflation over the past 20 years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4801

The 2024-25 Budget: State Employee Compensation

Mar 21, 2024 - Specifically, the data suggest that the Secretary of State (SOS) has a vacancy rate of 49  percent. In fact, however, in 2022 ‑23, the average monthly vacancy rate for SOS was 27  percent. The SCO and SOS reported that the 49  percent vacancy rate was not correct and that it was the result of internal processing issues at SCO.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4888

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 10 (Professional Scientists) and 18 (Psychiatric Technician)

Sep 9, 2025 - Beginning in 2030-31, both the employer and employee contributions under the agreement would fluctuate as a percentage of pay so that the employer and employee each contribute one-half of the normal cost of the benefit.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5073

MOU Analysis: Unit 10 (Professional Scientific)

Jan 30, 2023 - Long Period of Negotiating Shows That Historical Disagreement Between Union and State Persists. At the bargaining table, each page of a tentative agreement is signed by both parties and dated. From our experience reviewing MOUs, we have learned that an agreement often takes a few months —not years —to be finalized.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4665

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 16 (Physicians, Dentists, and Podiatrists)

Jul 14, 2025 - While the study indicated that state dentists are retiring at higher rates than statewide or other Unit 16 positions, the elevated retirement rate does not seem to be affecting the state ’s ability to fill dentist positions.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5064

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 6 (Corrections)

Jun 23, 2025 - We raised concerns in 2018 that CalHR provided no supporting evidence to justify Unit 6 pay increases despite it being required by state law (see our May 2018 analysis ). We raised concerns in 2019 that CalHR withheld (and continues to withhold) a compensation study it completed in 2018 (see our June 2019 analysis ) and proceeded to not produce compensation
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5058

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 5 (Highway Patrol)

Aug 23, 2024 - As the figure shows, total compensation costs for Unit 5 is significantly larger than Unit 6, but this is driven in large part by the state ’s payment to pension unfunded liabilities rather than significant differences in take home pay.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4920

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Unit 18

Aug 12, 2022 - In the case of 14 bargaining units, the state ’s contributions towards employee health benefits are established as a percentage of health premiums so that the state ’s contributions automatically change as health premiums change.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4617