There is going to be a school choice initiative on the state ballot in November 2022. While this is not an absolute certainty, the grassroots support for school choice is strong, and the infrastructure necessary to nurture a grassroots effort is now in place. The RecallGavin2020 campaign has proven the model, and fed up parents from Chula...
In his 2021 State of the State Address, Governor Newsom’s focus, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, was to defend his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A quick review of the 3,634 word transcript indicates only 20 percent of his remarks had to do with anything else. It’s understandable that Newsom would focus on the pandemic....
In a little-known and influential institution, a group of experts at the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) regularly update best practices and standards for government financial practices and procedures. They are best recognized for their generally accepted accounting principles. As described in their website, “GASB develops and issues accounting standards through a transparent and inclusive...
Californians voted on twelve state ballot propositions on November 3. On nine of these propositions, California’s government and private sector unions spent significant amounts of money, over a million in five cases, and over ten million in two cases. But of these nine, the unions only got their way on one of them, Prop. 19, which changed...
On July 1, 2020, the City of Placentia formally terminated its contract with the Orange County Fire Authority, where the average operations employee in 2018 collected pay and benefits in excess of $241,000. Seeking to create a new model that reduced these unaffordable levels of pay and benefits, as well as made more efficient use of...
On July 1, 2020, the Placentia, California’s new Fire and Life Safety Department commenced operations, marking a revolution in California firefighting – and in municipal finance. As documented in the two previous installments of this report, Placentia’s new and independent department replaced the more expensive services (part one) that had been provided by the union-dominated Orange County...
Image: San Gabriel (Creative Commons) If you’re looking for dark entertainment, you could do worse than the reality show unfolding throughout California. First, state and local officials supported the nearly total shutdown of the state’s economy as a necessary response to Covid-19. That killed the sales and other tax revenues that are the life’s blood...
On Monday, April 6 the Huntington Beach City Council voted to increase pay for its police officers and city employees. The cost for these raises over the next three years is estimated at $5 million. In a city that reported general revenues of $188 million in the fiscal year ended June 2019, this raise can accurately be described as...
Editor’s Note: The following was originally published on Reason. In terms of providing quality information that researchers, hospitals, public health officials, and taxpayers would find the most useful, the best portals are offered by San Diego, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Marin counties. County governments across California are providing an array of public coronavirus data...
The city of Lindsay, in Tulare County, is California’s fourth highest risk city according to the California state auditor. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Its fiscal condition will likely deteriorate further as residents shelter at home, raising the specter of sharp service cuts or even Chapter 9 bankruptcy for the city. The mistakes...
Until further notice, California’s economy is in free fall. As of April 6, California’s Employment Development Department reported receiving 1.9 million new unemployment insurance claims within barely three weeks. As reported in the San Jose Mercury, during the entire 2008 Great Recession, only 2.2. million unemployment claims were submitted. It’s impossible to know how long these unemployment claims...
Throughout the last several weeks, Governor Gavin Newsom has issued a number of executive orders to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Without criticizing the tremendous efforts that are already being made, I want to propose a few additional steps that California’s governor could further contain the damage this virus is wreaking. Some of...
Black Swan: an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences.” – Investopedia For decades there have been so-called “permabears” claiming that investment returns in the stock market were unsustainable. When the internet bubble popped in 1999, the permabears felt vindicated. But then, starting around 2003, the...
In a perfect world, California’s state and local public employees would receive exactly the same retirement benefits as federal employees. They would receive a modest defined benefit, a contributory 401K, and they would participate in Social Security. Unfortunately, in California, while some state and local public employees are offered 401Ks, and many participate in Social Security, all of...