An unspoken factor, however, is that many of the proposed taxes that purport to improve public safety are actually needed to satisfy rapidly increasing demands of pension funds, particularly the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, for more “contributions” to cover pension costs not being met by moribund trust fund earnings.
“Most importantly, the LAO’s analysis separates fact from fiction about the split-roll concept, which unions and other liberal groups have promoted for decades by arguing that homeowners are shouldering an ever-larger share of the $50 billion in property taxes that schools and local governments collect each year. Fundamentally, the LAO’s analysis rejects that claim, concluding, “Proposition 13 likely did not cause the slight increase in the share of property taxes paid by homeowners.””
And while the Sierra Club report said U.S. dealerships need to improve marketing of electric vehicles, it also said this: “Our volunteers were 2 1/2 times more likely to find no EV on a dealership lot in the nine other ZEV states than they were in California.”
But by grading schools that serve California’s 6-plus million K-12 students on “10 areas critical to student performance,” the system – whose precise details are yet to emerge – moves away from traditional academic standards into fuzzier areas. And that will likely make it more difficult for parents and the larger public to determine what’s really happening, or not, in the classroom.
Through six months this year, CNCDA said sales of new, conventional hybrids accounted for about 4.5 percent of all new-vehicle sales statewide. That’s down from nearly 7 percent in 2013. The CNCDA report showed that California sales of new, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs for short) have remained basically flat since 2014, with each segment accounting for about 1.5 percent of all new-vehicle registrations statewide. Between 2010 and 2014, plug-in and EV sales were rising.
Employers statewide added a robust 63,100 jobs during the month, the Employment Development Department reported Friday, although the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.5 percent. The job gains for August were a sharp contrast with a fairly weak showing of 18,600 the month before.
Brown has acknowledged the “volatility” that the dependence fosters, because incomes of the wealthy are tied to the stock market and other investments. But he’s declined to spend political capital on making the tax system more stable.
His signature followed narrow passage in the Legislature and intense lobbying by farmworkers. Assembly Bill 1066 will raise overtime wages for agricultural workers incrementally over four years, ultimately matching other industries by requiring time-and-a-half pay for more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a week.
The Nov. 8 ballot includes the largest number of measures – 17 – since 2000, when 20 measures qualified, according to the California secretary of state’s office. The most all time was in November 1914, when 48 measures appeared.
After weeks of uncertainty and pressure from members of Congress, federal officials on Wednesday announced a plan for managing water releases from California’s largest reservoir this summer in a manner that will not involve cutbacks in farm water deliveries – at least if all goes as hoped.
Facing strong resistance from teachers unions, she amended the measure again before its first hearing in the Senate Education Committee – and actually lost support. Unions objected to a change that would have simply extended the tenure evaluation period for all teachers to three years. With the expedited dismissal process now voluntary and the layoff provision removed entirely, education groups that previously supported the proposal rejected it as a “mere shell of its former self.”
The defense unit will be based in Huntsville, Ala., and it will include the company’s in-house development team Rocket Shop.
In a decision that could delay or complicate Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to build two huge tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a Superior Court judge ruled Friday that a comprehensive management plan for the estuary is no longer valid.
We are already No. 1 in congestion, but the prevailing ethos in Sacramento, as laid out in a new Brown administration transportation plan, is to avoid adding capacity, in hopes of compelling Californians to shift from cars to mass transit – even though transit systems are, overall, losing patronage, not gaining it.
Yee’s council explored two often-discussed changes in the tax system: a split-roll property tax in which business property would be taxed on a different basis than residential property, and taxation of services, which makes up a greater and greater share of the state’s economy. . . The council was instructed not to deal with the spending side of the budget. That is a glaring omission. If one is trying to determine how much revenue is needed to run the state, spending reforms must be considered.