Marc Joffe is President of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association and a California Policy Center visiting fellow.
After a long career in the financial industry, including a senior director role at Moody’s Analytics, he transitioned to policy research at CPC and Reason Foundation. Joffe’s research focuses on government finance and state policy issues.
Marc earned an MBA from New York University and an MPA from San Francisco State University.
Last year, CPC published a study on California City Pension Burdens. Most of the data for that study came from plan-specific actuarial valuation reports published by CalPERS. These reports show how much local government employers must pay CalPERS in the coming fiscal year and projects contributions for several years into the future. At the end...
By Marc Joffe
The November 2016 ballot is likely to contain an initiative that would raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 by 2021. At the beginning of this year, the state’s minimum wage rose from $9 to $10. If Measure 15-0032 passes, it will rise an additional dollar each year between 2017 and 2021; after that, it would...
By Marc Joffe
This is the second of an occasional series of posts on municipal bond issuance costs. You can see the first one, focusing on Fullerton, here. In a recent study of 800 municipal bond issues for UC Berkeley, I found that issuance costs varied widely – from less than 0.2% of face value to over 10%....
By Marc Joffe
California lags behind other states in transparency because it has not produced an on-line checkbook, showing detailed spending information by payee. The state does tell us how tax money is allocated by purposes (health, education, corrections, etc.), but it doesn’t tell us who receives this money.
By Marc Joffe
On November 17, State Treasurer John Chiang launched a new web site that provides information on bonds issued by California state and local governments. The site, at http://debtwatch.treasurer.ca.gov, has detailed data on over 50,000 bonds sold to investors over the last thirty years.
By Marc Joffe
Although many California political leaders espouse their support for transparency, the state lags behind most others in opening its spending data to public scrutiny. So while Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, has called on governments to “lean into notion of openness and transparency,” the state he may soon lead is leaning in quite the opposite direction....
By Marc Joffe
Download printable PDF version Summary: This study examines cost-per-pupil for high school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), comparing its traditional public schools to those attending its largest charter school network, the Alliance College Ready Public Schools. It also examines the educational achievement outcomes for traditional and charter high school students, focusing on...
By Marc Joffe
This week, Bay Area media have been covering the financial crisis at Doctor’s Medical Center, a public hospital operated by the West Contra County Healthcare District. As I discussed in a recent California Policy Center study, many California health care districts have financial issues, but the problems at WCCHD are especially acute. The district filed...
By Marc Joffe
SUMMARY: This study estimates the burden of pension costs on 459 California municipalities. The primary measure we consider is the ratio of required pension contributions to estimated total revenue for each city. We also look at contribution rates per employee and at pension funding levels. We find a wide variation in the impact of pension...
By Marc Joffe
INTRODUCTION While financial conditions in California cities have improved markedly since 2012, many of the state’s 78 healthcare districts are struggling. Last April, Palm Drive Healthcare District in Sebastopol filed for protection under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy law. In December, the West Contra Costa Healthcare District, which operates San Pablo-based Doctors Medical Center...
By Marc Joffe
Two years ago, Treasurer Bill Lockyer called for an early warning system to detect signs of financial trouble in California local governments before they faced bankruptcy. By proactively identifying at-risk cities, the system could create an opening for local experts and external advisors to intervene before any given situation spun out of control. As the California Policy...
By Marc Joffe
Introduction: Due to the healthy response generated by this study, and justifiable expressions of concern by many whose cities we found to be financially stressed, we would like to state that the rankings developed herein are based on information contained in 2013 financial statements, that is, financial statements for the fiscal year ended June 30,...
By Marc Joffe
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