It’s July. The California State Legislature has successfully met the budget submission deadline of June 15, and it was signed by the governor. There was one small fly in the ointment: how to cut $12 billion in spending? All while trying to provide $750 million in tax credits annually to one specific industry: Hollywood. Go...
Thanks to the Senate Parliamentarian, California will be spared the largest fiscal impact of the Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid reforms, but the state’s ability to shift the cost of undocumented immigrant Medi-Cal coverage onto federal taxpayers will nonetheless face limits. Between 2016 and 2024, the California legislature added groups of illegal aliens to the Medi-Cal...
Waiting for Orange County’s 28 school districts to post their annual audited financial statements for the year ending June 30, 2024, was an exercise in patience. All but one completed their audits before Dec. 31, which is extremely commendable. But five districts didn’t post their accountability requirements until mid-year 2025. Two were as late as...
A bill to allow more time to track down and file charges for these massive fraud schemes is languishing in the Senate. For all of the five-year remembrances of Covid-19, few have paused to recall the cyber smash-and-grab that hoovered billions of dollars out of state unemployment offices. Inmates in California grabbed thousands of dollars from prison library...
On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom released his May budget revision, proposing $321.9 in total spending for the next fiscal year. Now he must work with the legislature to pass a budget bill by the June 15th deadline. In a press conference outlining his budget to reporters, Newsom focused on blaming the Trump administration for California’s...
California’s state and local governments are struggling to find the cash needed to pay government employees the retirement benefits they promised. As the League of California Cities observed, pension costs for many of their members have been rising to “unsustainable levels”. Now, remarkably, the state Assembly is ready to make that problem far worse –...
An overview of the bond measure and what it means for California’s budget. Voters were sold a shiny promise — now California is billions deeper in debt. Last November, California voters approved Proposition 4, which authorized $10 billion in bonds for “safe drinking water, wildfire prevention, and protecting communities and natural lands from climate risks.”...
California brands itself as the global leader in technology and innovation. Yet when it comes to modernizing state and municipal government financial reporting, the Golden State is stuck in the digital stone age. Currently, California’s local governments submit their Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs) — audited financial statements, detailing financial positions and changes in a...
We don’t generally discuss national politics here at CPC World HQ – we’ve got our hands full dealing with Gov. Gavin Newsom and his confederacy of dunces in the state capitol. But let’s acknowledge some of President-elect Donald Trump’s great choices for key administration positions – including Scott Bessent at Treasury, Chris Wright at Energy,...
As Californians head to the polls, voters statewide will be deciding on whether to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in local tax hikes and new government bonds. The problem? Over two dozen cities, counties and school districts are asking for more money, but elected officials in those jurisdictions don’t even know what their financial...
The powers that be seek to make it virtually impossible for state residents to restrain taxation and spending. Every two years, in addition to electing their state and local officials, Californians participate in so-called citizen democracy, a process by which they approve or reject legislation in the form of ballot initiatives. This election season is...
Californians tend to be credit card debt-laden and don’t seem to mind adding more debt to their monthly financial commitments. That may be why they, as voters, do not flinch when Sacramento legislators put bond measures on the ballot. These propositions usually receive enough votes to succeed and permit the state to borrow more money....