The payouts highlight the fact that sidewalks in many city neighborhoods are crumbling, partly because city officials neglected infrastructure for many years before reviving it as a high priority in 2014. Some council members lobbied last year for a 90-day deadline to fix reported sidewalk damage, and for a policy change eliminating the responsibility of […]
The researchers conclude that “while public schools in California spent about $69.7 billion on school operations in 2016-17, an additional $22.1 billion—32 percent above actual spending—would have been necessary for all students to have had the opportunity to meet the goals set by the state Board of Education. On a per-pupil basis, the adequate district-level […]
Here’s the story briefly: In 2012, Brown and the Legislature took $410 million that was supposed to assist victims of abusive mortgage lending and used it to help balance the state budget. Homeowner groups sued. Two courts ruled against the state and ordered it to replace $331 million. Just before the current Legislature adjourned Aug. […]
In two recent posts, I detailed the United Teachers of Los Angeles contract demands on the school district and reported that a strike was likely. And of late, the situation has gone from bad to dire. Perhaps the biggest issue revolves around the union’s demand for a 6 percent pay hike – retroactive to last […]
• California’s education system is moving in the right direction but is still in need of capacity building to support a decade of reforms. Over the past decade a multitude of reforms have resulted in some improvement. But, the system still must ensure that educators and other practitioners have the skills, information and materials they […]
Unfortunately, nationwide academic tests tell us that California’s 6 million K-12 school students rank near the bottom in achievement vis-à-vis those in other states. In the National Assessment of Academic Progress (NAEP) testing, for example, California’s fourth-graders rank lower than those in 45 other states and in reading, lower than kids in 39 other states. […]
For the first time, the county Office of Education has disapproved Sacramento City Unified School District’s budget for the fiscal year due to deficits. The district now has one month to file a revised budget for 2018-19, as announced during the district’s Thursday night board meeting. In a budget report letter addressed to district Superintendent […]
Liability claims against the City of Los Angeles have caused continuing nightmares for the City’s budget mavens. Over the last five years, the total payouts and settlements for legal actions totaled $541 million, an average of $108 million a year, double the amount for the previous five years (2009-2013) of $264 million, an average of […]
The price tag for the 2017 crisis at Oroville Dam has surged past $1 billion. On Wednesday, the state Department of Water Resources revealed a $1.1 billion cost estimate for the massive repair work at America’s tallest dam. The cost of the emergency response, and the subsequent repairs to the dam’s two flood-control spillways, has […]
CalRecycle did not establish goals for the mattress program in three critical areas: increasing convenience for consumers, reducing illegal dumping of mattresses, and ensuring consistency with the State’s overall approach to waste management, which prioritizes source reduction. Although required to develop state goals for mattress recycling by January 2018, CalRecycle set goals that focus on […]
Every election, politicians talk about the need for more job training programs. What they don’t tell voters is that the government already spends billions on job training. Most of it is wasted. Every election, politicians talk about the need for more job training programs. What they don’t tell voters is that the government already spends […]
California’s booming economy is pouring many billions of additional tax dollars into state and local government treasuries. Nevertheless, the locals – cities and school districts, especially – find themselves in an ever-tightening fiscal vise because mandatory payments into public employee pension funds are growing much faster than revenues. That’s why dozens of them are asking […]
Owners of properties in use fewer than 50 days per year would be taxed as much as $6,000 per parcel annually, if two-thirds of voters approve the measure in November. Two weeks after the Oakland City Council voted 6-2 to place the tax on the ballot, officials in the neighboring city of Richmond greenlighted a […]
The 2004 measure was Proposition 71, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The campaign to pass it was led by a Palo Alto real estate developer whose son suffered from an incurable illness that he believed stem cells, the keystones of human biology, could heal. Other supporters included preeminent scientists, Hollywood celebrities, business […]
California looks a lot different than it did a generation ago. Its residents are far more diverse, and they live in a far more expensive state. There’s way more renters and proportionately way fewer Republicans. Yet today’s Californians have at least one thing in common with their late 1970s forebears: They still really like Proposition […]