Democrats return to the California Capitol on Monday with their strongest political advantage in decades poised to fulfill a huge item on their list of pent-up demands: Vastly expanded access to preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. Their plan comes with a big price tag, a problem that has doomed past proposals, most recently with outgoing […]
California’s most senior Democrat and most powerful Republican in Washington are teaming up to extend a federal law designed to deliver more Northern California water south, despite the objections of some of the state’s environmentalists. While controversial, the language in their proposal could help settle the contentious negotiations currently underway in Sacramento on Delta water […]
Gov. Jerry Brown’s parting gift to Gov. elect Gavin Newsom is a state budget so flush with unrestricted tax revenue that top fiscal analysts struggled to find the right words to describe it. “The budget is in remarkably good shape,” reads the annual fiscal outlook by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. “It is difficult to overstate […]
California’s unemployment rate held at the record low of 4.1 percent in October. The state Employment Development Department says Friday that employers added 36,400 jobs last month. A year earlier, California’s unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. The rate hit the record low in September after spending months just a notch higher at 4.2 percent.
About 130,000 more residents left California for other states last year than came here from them, as high costs left many residents without a college degree looking for an exit, according to a Bee review of the latest census estimates. They most often went to cheaper, nearby states – and Texas. Since 2001, about 410,000 […]
Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to stop charging most city-imposed fees to developers who build new affordable housing. Starting Dec. 30, developers and nonprofits that build new affordable apartment units and single-family homes will no longer need to pay city fees that go toward services like infrastructure, parks, water and sewer, a city staff report […]
Most public sector union contracts have clauses that prevent workers from quitting until the month before the labor agreement ends. Some unions earlier this year released new agreements that compel members to commit to membership for at least one year. Both of those membership clauses are intended to buffer unions from extreme swings in membership […]
SMUD officials say the new system is revenue neutral, meaning that ratepayers overall should end up paying the same annually as they do under the current system because of lower winter rates. But, as the chart below shows, many ratepayers will be hit with price shock during summer months, including a price spike in July […]
A small California state employee union decided on Thursday that a contract with two more consecutive years of 5 percent raises was too good to pass up in the waning months of Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration. The California Association of Professional Scientists approved the contract by a vote of 802 to 339. It will give […]
Last year the California Legislature raised gasoline taxes by 12 cents a gallon, and conservatives were so outraged they launched an effort to repeal it at the ballot box. Proposition 6 comes up for a vote in November. Now, with considerably less fanfare, the state’s air-pollution agency has enacted a regulation that will raise gas […]
Defying the Trump administration on climate change, California’s air-pollution agency ruled Friday that automakers must comply with the state’s strict rules on greenhouse gases if they want to continue selling cars here. The California Air Resources Board approved a regulation that will significantly curtail carbon spewed by new cars sold in the state, beginning in […]
The Sacramento City Unified School District is even more in the red than previously thought: By 2020, the district will have a structural deficit of $48 million by 2020 if cuts aren’t made, a gap that’s almost $12 million more than announced in June, and $8 million more than the district’s most recent estimates. “It’s […]
Even on a good day, Simmons’ commute and the commutes of several hundred more residents of this city are among the worst in the United States. Roughly 21 percent of Los Banos workers have at a least a 90-minute ride to and from work, the highest percentage in the nation, according to a McClatchy analysis […]
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District will launch a new rate system next month that charges residential users higher rates between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. — and lower rates at other times. SMUD, which provides electricity to more than a half-million residences in Sacramento County, has begun notifying some customers. The rate overhaul will phase […]
California’s unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent in August. The state Employment Development Department says Friday the rate has held steady for five months. The department says California adds 44,800 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, for a total gain of more than 3 million jobs since economic expansion began in February 2010.