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Starting May 1, Felix and roughly 170,000 other undocumented children in California will have more options during such crises. They’ll gain access to not just emergency coverage but dental care, check-ups, mental health treatment and other vital services following an unprecedented Medi-Cal expansion that provides full coverage to all low-income children in the state, regardless of immigration status. . . The Medi-Cal expansion for undocumented children is exclusively state funded and is expected to cost the Department of Healthcare Services about $132 million annually.

Three years later, California education reform groups increasingly question how the LCFF is working out. They cite little evidence of more resources going to struggling students and many instances of extra dollars going into general school district budgets, with the blessing of Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson.

In total, the study covers 564 state and local systems in the United States that reported $1.91 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities under GASB 67 in FY 2014. The analysis reveals that, despite well-performing markets from 2009 to 2014, state and local government pension systems are underwater by $3.4 trillion and that the true cost of keeping pension liabilities from rising is 17.5 percent of state and local budgets. Even contributions of those magnitudes would not begin to pay down the trillions of dollars of unfunded legacy liabilities; they would simply stop the unfunded liability from rising.

However, the state Board of Education seems determined to have a soft “multiple measures” system of accountability that downplays test results, with few consequences for failure. So we may never really know whether LCFF actually meets its purported goal.

Nothing short of a “tsunami” appears headed towards state and local government balance sheets as the full extent of the minimum wage “aftershock” begins to come into sharper focus.  This comes as state and local governments are still reeling from the impact of unfunded pension and health care liabilities on the order of $1.2 trillion and growing, according to Stanford University.

On Thursday, however, the competition turned into a battle between two cities. Mayors of Fresno and Visalia faced off at a Sacramento committee hearing over the location of a Nordstrom distribution center.

But that lacks context. BART officials gave away the store in 2013. The new extension, to 2021, layers onto the earlier deal, further inflating salaries without paring back sweetheart benefits. . . BART negotiators gave up any hope of saving money by insisting workers contribute their fair share to their pensions.

El Niño has doused northern California, but farmers in the state’s Central Valley won’t see much benefit. The Obama Administration is again indulging its progressive friends at the expense of low-income communities.

Many states have enjoyed an oversized boost in recent years from so-called sin taxes on cigarettes and gambling—among other vices—but the benefit to state coffers has increasingly been fading. Tobacco tax revenue across the 50 states has declined, while growing gambling competition has eaten into states’ take.

The controversial court ruling that declared California’s teacher tenure and dismissal laws unconstitutional was overturned Thursday by a state appeals court.

A California economic development board handed out $70.5 million in tax credits on Thursday for private companies promising to create jobs in the state, including $12.7 million for electric car-maker Faraday Future, which broke ground a day earlier on a new manufacturing facility in neighboring Nevada.

California finishes last in a new review of how states report spending on contracts and other items, with the report’s authors blaming “bureaucratic fragmentation” for the lack of a one-stop web site that would make it easier for average California residents to examine the payments.

CalPERS actuaries recommend that the annual state payment for state worker pensions increase $602 million in the new fiscal year to $5.35 billion, nearly doubling the $2.7 billion paid a decade ago before the recession and a huge investment loss.

State governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year through contracts for goods and services, subsidies to encourage economic development, and other expenditures. Public accountability helps ensure that state funds are spent as wisely as possible.

Berkeley employs about 8,500 staffers, from custodians to administrators. Faculty members will not be affected. Dirks said the reductions will be done in part through attrition and did not mention layoffs.