California exports, off to a fast start through the first four months of this year, cooled off a bit in May. California businesses shipped merchandise valued at $13.49 billion in May, up a modest 1 percent from $13.35 billion in the same month last year.
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon put the brakes on a sweeping plan to overhaul the health care market in California Friday, calling the bill “woefully incomplete.” Rendon announced plans to park the bill to create a government-run universal health care system in Assembly Rules Committee “until further notice” and give senators time to fill in holes that the bill does not currently address. “Even senators who voted for Senate Bill 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation,” Rendon said.
A class-action lawsuit against CalPERS filed on behalf of more than 130,000 California government workers and retirees can move forward to trial, a Los Angeles judge has ruled. The lawsuit challenges a sharp increase in fees that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System levied on people who bought insurance for long-term health care through the pension fund. It argues that the rate hike was different in scale and purpose than any previous fee increase on those policy holders.
California is restricting publicly funded travel to four more states because of recent laws that leaders here view as discriminatory against gay and transgender people. All totaled, California now bans most state-funded travel to eight states.
Should taxpayers underwrite special benefits to attract new teachers, such as affordable housing, expanded maternity leave and tax breaks? California lawmakers have put forward a raft of proposals offering extra perks for teachers this session, prompted by what supporters say is an urgent need to do more to encourage people to get into the profession or stay there. “Due to the extreme shortage of teachers in the state, many school districts must seek opportunities to attract qualified teachers,” Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, said of his bill meant to increase the supply of affordable housing for teachers. Available data, though, doesn’t back up such dire assessments of the state’s overall teacher supply. Data shows that, as state finances have improved, so have the number of teachers in public schools.
Two changes to the contract – added without bidding – swelled the deal to $8 million within a year. Then, the Employment Development Department submitted a request to add another $2 million worth of work to the arrangement without soliciting new bids from other companies. That project is one of nine that State Auditor Elaine Howle highlighted in a new report released on Tuesday that urges California government to be more cautious in awarding high-value contracts without seeking competitive bids.
Market-rate development has outstripped the supply of affordable units. And “regressive” zoning and environmental regulations, combined with California’s reputation as a tech behemoth are leading to the “hollowing out of the middle class,” Shulman said. “President Trump wants to keep people out by building a wall. California is more sophisticated – it uses zoning and development laws to keep people out, but they have the same effect,” he said.
California lawmakers passed a spending plan for the coming fiscal year Thursday, meeting the state’s budget approval deadline with a $183.2 billion package that raises school funding, expands a tax credit for the working poor and gives the Capitol a greater say over University of California finances
Kellogg Co., the multinational food producing company, plans to lay off 230 employees and close its Northern California sales office in Roseville.
How to spend the more than $1 billion in tobacco taxes was among the final hold ups of the spending agreement. The tobacco money came under heavy lobbying as Brown and lawmakers worked toward a resolution. Under the deal, doctors, dentists and other health professionals who provide publicly funded care could receive $465 million in higher payments.
A summary of the agreement released by the governor also highlights expansion of the state’s earned-income tax credit as a way to fight poverty. It makes the credit available to more than 1 million more households after nearly 400,000 households claimed the credit in 2015. It puts $1.8 billion toward the state’s rainy day reserve and grows by $3.1 billion school funding over the revised 2016-17 budget, to $74.5 billion in 2017-18.
It starts at the corner gas station. California’s cap-and-trade program requires fuel wholesalers, along with other big industrial firms, to purchase emissions allowances in order to generate carbon. In addition, fuel producers – from giant oil refiners to ethanol manufacturers – must purchase a separate type of credits to comply with the state’s “low carbon fuel standard,” which penalizes companies that spew lots of carbon during the production process.
Those costs get passed along to motorists. The total impact is about 15 cents a gallon, according to figures compiles by UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein.
California voters overwhelmingly oppose a recent tax and fee package pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic-dominated Legislature to pay for road repairs, a new poll finds.
The gas tax law, which ushers in a 10-year program to raise more than $52 billion for transportation projects, is so unpopular it could backfire on Democrats in upcoming elections. IGS Poll: Gas tax More than half of California’s registered voters oppose the new state law raising taxes on gas and vehicle registration fees. Chart of poll results Source: Berkeley IGS Poll Fifty eight percent of voters oppose Senate Bill 1, including 39 percent who say they strongly reject the legislation, according to the survey from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Only 35 percent favor the law, which raises taxes on gasoline and diesel and hikes vehicle registration fees to fix roads and highways.
Still, critics of the program say the coverage that was brought back in California is sorely inadequate. Today, adult Medi-Cal patients can get a root canal on a front tooth, but not a back tooth. They can get full dentures, but not partial dentures.
“It’s either you should kill it or fund it,” said Paul Downey, chairman of the California Commission on Aging. “Now it’s in a limbo where it’s not useless, but it’s close to useless.”
“Total district pension contributions are expected to increase by about $1 billion (in 2017-18),” the Legislative Analyst’s Office calculated. Local school officials complained that Brown’s initial budget increased their financing by just $744 million, meaning they would have to divert operating funds to pay for pensions. Brown’s revised budget boosted school money by another $1-plus billion, thanks to higher tax revenues, but a big chunk wouldn’t be paid until 2019, which could still force schools to cut other spending next year to pay for pensions. All of these burdens will grow. Not only are the state’s pension costs scheduled to nearly double by 2023-24 – once again, assuming CalPERS hits its earnings targets – but CalSTRS’ bite on school districts is projected to rise from $4.7 billion in 2017-18 to $7 billion by 2020-21, plus another $2.5 billion for CalPERS.
It would cost $400 billion per year to remake California’s health insurance marketplace and create a publicly funded universal heath care system, according to a state financial analysis released Monday.
California would have to find an additional $200 billion per year, likely in new tax revenues, to create a so-called “single-payer” system, the analysis by the Senate Appropriations committee found. The estimate assumes the state would retain the existing $200 billion in local, state and federal funding it currently receives to offset the total $400 billion price tag.