The 2023-24 Budget: Improving Legislative Oversight of CalFire’s Emergency Fire Protection Budget

May 1, 2023 - Corresponding to this change, we recommend the administration reduce the amount it budgets for the E ‑Fund to reflect this more modest scope by basing it on the average of previous years of just unplanned expenditures rather than on all E ‑Fund expenditures.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4765

U.S. Retail Sales Update: March 2023 [EconTax Blog]

Apr 14, 2023 - U.S. retail sales have grown 1.9 percent over the last 3 months and 2.9 percent over the last 12 months. Sales have grown faster than inflation over the last 3 months but slower than inflation over the last 12.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/773

The Local Control Funding Formula for School Districts and Charter Schools

Jan 9, 2023 - The budget also established a new funding stream, beginning in 2022 ‑23, for school districts and county offices of education (COEs) to be reimbursed for 60  percent of eligible transportation expenditures they reported in the previous year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4661

California Children’s Services (CCS) program. [Ballot]

Dec 12, 2023 - The state also could not support the measure ’s costs using money from a state tax on health insurance plans known as the managed care organization tax. Moreover, the measure prohibits the state from counting the new hospital grant program as a Medi-Cal payment —meaning that the state could not seek federal approval to use federal funds to help cover the cost.
https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2023-029

The 2022-23 Budget: Initial Comments on the Governor's May Revision

May 16, 2022 - Specifically, SAL requirements can only be met with: Tax Reductions or Tax Refunds. The first way the Legislature can allocate revenues in order to comply with the SAL is to reduce proceeds of taxes, for example, by reducing tax rates, increasing tax credits, or returning funds to taxpayers through tax refunds.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4598

Property taxes. [Ballot]

Aug 4, 2023 - How Is a Property Tax Bill Calculated? Each annual property tax bill is equal to the taxable value of the property multiplied by the property tax rate. The typical property tax rate is 1.1  percent. In the year a new owner takes over a property, its taxable value typically is its purchase price.
https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2023-005

The 2021-22 Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Sep 23, 2021 - The budget language also limits the total cost of any solution to no more than $5  million, requires that CDT submit a prioritized list of solutions to the Department of Finance for review and approval prior to expenditure of the funding, and report to the Legis lature on a semiannual basis (among other information) the expenditures from the fund and the solutions funded.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4452

Strong Tax Collections Belie California's Challenging Fiscal Outlook

Apr 26, 2022 - Having essentially reached the Proposition  4 (1979) state appropriations limit (SAL), each additional dollar of revenue must be allocated consistent with SAL requirements, generally making them unavailable to fund baseline expenditures.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4590

An Update on California’s Cash Management Situation

Aug 31, 2020 - The preferred source for comparing budget projections to cash actuals are Agency cash reports, for example, as displayed on the LAO Economy and Taxes Blog .) Significant Federal Reimbursements for COVID-19 Direct Expenditures Anticipated in 2020-21.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4266

Did California Enter a Recession Last Fall? [EconTax Blog]

Oct 3, 2023 - First,  it offers an explanation for the recent slowdown in state tax collections. Despite some  improvements in the last few months, tax collections  have  been and are  anticipated to continue to be  weak by historical standards.
https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/785