If the governor’s tax measure does not pass this fall, local school districts like Davis figure to be hammered by automatic trigger cuts. For Davis that means the loss of about 3.5 million dollars in funding which, combined with the expiration of Measure A and the increased costs of special education, puts Davis in a catastrophic hole at negative 7.5 million dollars.
A Field Poll released today shows that the voters are largely mixed on the latest round of state cuts, with 37 percent believing the cuts went too far, 28% that they did not go far enough and 24% believing they are just right.
As local communities like Davis face devastating budget cuts, protracted labor strife, and even bankruptcy due to a retirement pension crisis, leaders in Sacramento are moving closer but have failed to reach an agreement on pension reform.
Last February the governor unveiled the statutory and constitutional language to implement the 12-point pension reform plan he presented last October.
In April, the Attorney General of California announced that a federal judge had signed off on a foreclosure settlement among banks, federal agencies and attorney generals from 49 states.
The attorney general identified deceptive practices regarding loan modifications, foreclosures occurring due to the servicer’s failure to properly process paperwork, and the use of incomplete paperwork to process foreclosures in both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure cases.
Long before the term “1%” was enshrined in the popular lexicon of the citizenry, California State Senator Leland Yee was fighting corruption, fighting for open government, and fighting against executive pay raises in institutions of higher education in California.
Given the lightning rod that has developed for student protests, one would think that more care would be taken. But the lesson that we learned this week is that neither prudence nor decency seem to have a place when it comes to the decisions made by the CSU Trustees, who follow the actions of UC from late last fall.
In a meeting this week with the San Francisco Chronicle’s Editorial Board, Governor Brown threw down the gauntlet, arguing that his tax initiative was the only one that would solve the state’s fiscal crisis and increase funding to schools and higher education.
The Chronicle reported, “He said that one of the other tax proposals, known as the millionaires tax, might poll well because it would hit the wealthiest Californians and dedicate money almost exclusively to education, but that it fails to consider the effect of Proposition 98 – the state’s education funding guarantee – and amounts to ‘ballot-box budgeting’ that creates more problems than it solves.”
A few days ago, Republican Senators Bill Emmerson (Hemet), Tom Berryhill (Modesto), Anthony Cannella (Ceres) and Tom Harman (Huntington Beach) wrote an op-ed in the LATimes, pushing for their public employee pension reform legislation.
They discussed Senate Constitutional Amendment 13, which “resulted from last year’s failed negotiations with Gov. Jerry Brown over the reforms we sought and that California desperately needs — including pension reform.”
Occupy Movement Blasts the Deal and Calls For Moratorium on Foreclosure
Kamala Harris last week had a day many politicians dream of: a headline-making announcement that delivers a large amount of money to constituents. Symbolically, the attorney general’s foreclosure settlement announcement and her role in shaping the out-of-court mortgage-abuse settlement with five huge home loan banks – Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial – marked a huge victory for the little guy in a sea of turmoil and unsettledness.
On the other hand, there are more questions than answers at this point. As Peter Schrag, the venerable columnist now writing for the California ProgressReport noted, “California Attorney General Kamala Harris deserves at least some of the self-congratulation she heaped on herself when the big national mortgage foreclosure deal was announced last week.”
Angry Response From Public Employees to the Governor’s Plan
On Thursday, Governor Jerry Brown unveiled the statutory and constitutional language to implement the 12-point pension reform plan he presented last October.
“These major reforms for state and local pension systems will improve their long-term sustainability while providing employees a fair retirement,” the governor wrote. “These reforms also will end system-wide abuses and reduce taxpayer costs by billions of dollars over the long term.”
Move Puts Further Pressure on CalPERS to Do Likewise
In a move with huge implications, the governing board of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the pension fund for teachers, lowered their investment return assumption from 7.75 percent to 7.5 percent.
According to a release on Thursday, “The change is part of a four-year experience analysis that sets the parameters for determining the financial health of the system.”
However Other Groups Continuing to Back Millionaire’s Tax
Governor Brown has had to fight not only the right on his tax initiative, but his own base in the form of at least two competing measures. This week, however, the governor gained key support as the California Teacher’s Association’s State Council of Education, comprised of 800 elected educators from across the state, endorsed the governor’s tax plan at their quarterly meeting in Los Angeles on Sunday.
“Educators know that California cannot continue to cut its way out of ongoing budget problems. We also know that not everyone in California is paying their fair share, and that’s why we are supporting the governor’s tax proposal, which taxes the wealthiest Californians in order to bring additional revenue to our schools, colleges and other essential public services,” Dean Vogel, president of the CTA and a Davis resident said in a statement on Sunday.
There is little doubt that Governor Jerry Brown, who has struggled to get a handle on the budget, will applaud the findings in a recent PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California) poll that shows 68 percent of likely voters (and 72 percent of all adults) favor the his tax proposal.
How strong is that support? Even Republicans are found to be slightly more likely to favor (53%) than oppose it (46%).
Senator Wolk: Opposes Peripheral Canal in Delta Plan
“California is on the mend,” Governor Brown began his State of the State address, arguing that because of last year’s actions, “we shrunk state government, reduced our borrowing costs and transferred key functions to local government, closer to the people. The result is a problem one-fourth as large as the one we confronted last year.”
“California has problems but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated,” the governor said.
A Look at Education in Governor Brown’s Budget Proposal
The Vanguard is going to, over the next week or so, analyze several critical areas of the budget. We begin where we have been for the last several years – looking at K-12 education. No area of the budget has been hammered harder than education.
On a local level, the continuing education cuts have meant that the school district has had to implement two additional parcel tax measures in 2008 and 2011 in order to keep funding relatively stable.
There is a nine billion dollar hole that the state is going to have to fill. How it chooses to fill it will depend more on the decision of voters than it will on the legislators.
The worst cuts can be avoided if voters approve the Governor’s 6.9 billion dollar initiative that would increase taxes on sales and the very wealthy.
In what has been billed a significant victory for the Jerry Brown administration, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state could eliminate redevelopment agencies, thus paving the way for the state to divert money from local redevelopment agencies in an effort to balance the current budget.
The court would rule that the actions taken by the legislation represent “a proper exercise of the legislative power vested in the Legislature by the state Constitution.”
A statewide survey released on Monday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found that the majority of California voters favor Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to temporarily increase the state sales tax and the income taxes of high earners.
A piece of legislation that may have the most impact on the fiscal solvency of cities like Davis is Governor Jerry Brown’s public pension reform plan. Earlier this week, analysis from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) showed a mixed review.
The LAO called the Governor’s Proposal a “bold, excellent starting point” that “would help increase public confidence in California’s retirement systems.”
The Department of Fish and Game’s announcement this month of a remarkable turnaround in the populations of the Bay-Delta estuary’s endangered Smelt and Salmon species spelled more trouble for proponents of the state’s 2012 water bond measure.
Delta legislators and environmentalists were delighted by news of the recovering populations within the Delta but, assured an epic election battle where they expect to be heavily outspent by water interest groups, continue to promote science, conservation and regional sustainability over what they claim is a monolithic funding measure that’s bloated with unnecessarily expensive statewide solutions to what amount to regional water woes.
35,000 poor, frail elders slated to lose adult daycare benefit December 1
By Assemblymember Mariko Yamada
Recent front-page Sacramento Bee headlines about tragedies in California nursing homes should be glaring reminders about the reasons California pioneered the Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) alternative to nursing home care forty years ago. If you are old, or are planning to be – pay attention – because this system is about to vanish.
Facing severe budget pressures, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is currently dismantling the ADHC program in California. This proven cost-effective program that has worked well to keep Californians out of nursing homes for the past four decades has fallen victim to an annual game of “budget chicken”.
Last night, Governor Jerry Brown laid down the gauntlet against Republican lawmakers, accusing them of an “unconstitutional delegation of power.”
The governor, angry that the legislature defeated his tax and jobs plans, accused Republicans of being controlled by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.