News

The Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, published annually since 1997, is the premier fact-based benchmark for measuring the performance of the Massachusetts knowledge economy.

In another sign that a once-promising El Niño weather pattern is proving to be no drought-buster, California officials say an unseasonably warm and dry February shrunk the Sierra snowpack to below average depths.

How do taxes in your state compare nationally? This convenient resource compares the 50 states on many different measures of taxing and spending, including individual and corporate income tax rates, business tax climates, excise taxes, tax burdens and state spending.

. . . San Francisco has passed more laws than any other major city to improve the lives of low-wage workers such as dishwashers, bussers, line cooks and waiters; Berkeley, Oakland and other Bay Area cities are not far behind. . . How much more expensive is dining out becoming? To get a sense, The Chronicle examined 20 years’ worth of menus from restaurants that hold steady spots on the annual Michael Bauer’s Top 100 Restaurants list.` After tracking 22 signature dishes or prix-fixe menus from 14 restaurants, we found that prices have risen, on average, 26 percent since 2010 and 52 percent since 2005 — up 7.5 percent in the last year alone.

Unemployment rates in just 14 states had returned to or fallen below their 2007 averages in 2015: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The Department of Water Resources announced Wednesday that the State Water Project will increase its allocation to an estimated 30 percent of what’s been requested by the project’s customers. A month ago, the allocation was pegged at 15 percent.

Despite a concerted effort from Gov. Jerry Brown to keep California from slipping back into the financial abyss, the state’s finances remain threatened by massive unfunded obligations.

Between the two sources, spending in the coming fiscal year would total $167.6 billion, or about $4,200 for each Californian. That’s two-thirds higher than he was 40 years ago, after adjusting for inflation.

In short, we view a significant majority of what the LAO identified as discretionary resources in the budget as nonrecurring. From a structural standpoint, therefore, California’s fiscal alignment affords considerably less capacity for new ongoing spending initiatives than its current-year bottom line might suggest.

The total liability grew $2.38 billion compared to the prior fiscal year, but the size of the increase was $1.50 billion less than estimated in last year’s report. Health care claims did not grow as rapidly as expected, and changes in health care delivery and assumptions about long-term trends helped to lower costs by $1.76 billion. Conversely, demographic shifts added more than a quarter billion dollars to the liability.
These costs have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. In 2001, retiree health care costs accounted for 0.6 percent of the state General Fund budget. This year, they will total $1.90 billion, or about 1.6 percent of the budget. If no changes are made to the state’s method of funding retiree health care costs, the current $74.10 billion unfunded liability will grow to more than $100 billion by the 2020-21 fiscal year, and $300 billion by 2047-48.

A small group of electric vehicle companies fall under the provisions of Senate Bill 680 – primarily Tesla, which is in Wieckowski’s district and sponsored the legislation.

The farmers and cities that rely on the California State Water Project got some slightly encouraging news Tuesday – the state is raising their water allocation to 15 percent of what they requested.

Despite recent rains and above-normal snowpack, and increasing reservoir levels, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is cautious about this year’s water allocation for California growers.

. . . the U.S Bureau of Reclamation Friday released a report showing storage for six key Central Valley Project reservoirs – Shasta, New Melones, Trinity, Folsom, Millerton, and the federal portion of San Luis – is down by 963,000 acre-feet, as compared to this time last year. The report also shows that the CVP’s reservoir carryover storage from Water Year 2015 into WY 2016 was 2.9 million acre-feet, just 24% of capacity and 47% of the 15-year average.

In a short speech with a long view of California, Gov. Jerry Brown used his State of the State address to challenge lawmakers to better balance the cyclical nature of success and setback that has dominated state government for the better part of two decades.