News

Gov. Brown wants state workers to begin paying half the cost of their future retiree health care — a big change for workers making no payments for coverage that can pay 100 percent of the premium for a retiree and 90 percent for their dependents.

The governor also wants state workers to be given the option of a lower-cost health insurance plan with higher deductibles. The state would contribute to a tax-deferred savings account to help cover out-of-pocket costs not covered by the plan.

A contract dispute between commercial producers and Teamsters Local 399 has escalated, raising the prospect of the first Hollywood strike by the union in nearly two decades..

Although lawmakers cut general fund expenditures by $16.6 billion during the recession from 2007-08 to 2011-12, they shifted money from funds to keep many of the programs operating.

The idea, he said, is to broaden the sales tax to possibly include legal work, advertising, Internet usage, dry cleaning and other services. At the same time, he would lower the personal and corporate income tax and even boost the minimum wage.

Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a spending plan Friday that restores few recession-era spending cuts to social services, with schools and a voter-approved rainy day reserve benefiting the most from robust revenue growth in recent months.

California public schools and community colleges will reap the lion’s share of revenues from a booming economy, with their budgets growing by $7.8 billion this year and next, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed Friday.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today proposed a carefully balanced budget that injects billions of dollars more into schools and health care coverage, holds college tuition flat and delivers on Propositions 1 and 2 by investing in long overdue water projects and saving money, while continuing to chip away at the state’s other long-term liabilities – debt, infrastructure, retiree health care and climate change.

In its first congestion report card in five years, the Bay Area’s transportation planning agency said that average congestion — defined as traffic moving 35 mph or less — increased 65 percent in the Bay Area from 2009 to 2013.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown cautioned against “exuberant overkill” on spending when he released his $164.7-billion budget proposal for 2015-16 on Friday, but pressure already is mounting in the Democratic-controlled Legislature to offer more state assistance to Californians struggling financially..

California income and corporation tax collections surged in December, pushing estimated tax revenue since July to about $3.6 billion above what lawmakers projected when they approved the current budget, according to preliminary totals compiled by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

With his first bill as a state senator, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg has proposed a massive shift in California tax policy, one he says better reflects a 21st century economy where information and services make up a huge portion of economic activity. The Los Angeles Democrat proposes extending the state’s sales tax to many services and devoting the money to education and local governments. As a tax hike, the bill requires two-thirds approval – a heavy lift in a Legislature where Democrats have lost their supermajority. But Hertzberg chairs the committee that oversees tax bills and is widely seen as an ambitious politician. Taxes will also figure big this year as political operatives prepare ballot measures for the 2016 election. Education advocates are calling for an extension of the temporary tax increases voters approved with Proposition 30 in 2012, and liberal activists want to change 1978’s Proposition 13 to increase taxes on commercial property. Public health advocates have said they will pursue a new tax on cigarettes this year, through either legislation or the ballot box.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today took the oath of office as Governor of California and delivered his inaugural address in the Assembly Chamber. The address serves as the Governor’s constitutionally required annual report to the Legislature.

The region’s housing mismatch increasingly affects hiring and corporate location decisions. In early 2014, Charles Schwab Corp. told employees in San Francisco that it planned to move “a significant number of San Francisco-based jobs” to other locations around the country over the next three to five years. The move is expected to involve more than 1,000 of its Bay Area workforce of 2,700.

The state overall has been losing people to other parts of the country since the 1990s. A snapshot of more recent U.S. Census migration numbers shows that nearly three-quarters of those who have left California for other states since 2007 earn less than $50,000 a year.

In reality, once a Legislature creates a program and gives regulators broad new powers, it’s unlikely anything will rein it in. Maybe as the Legislature returns, someone can propose a law that requires a careful analysis of old laws. Then again, one can only guess the unintended consequences that would result from that idea.