State of California

According to attorneys for some of the 71 arrested protesters, many of them teachers, the District Attorney has not decided whether to file charges for trespassing, section 602 of the penal code, subsection Q – failing to leave a public building when closed “without lawful business.”

71 teachers and other protesters were arrested May 9 after about 200 of them gathered in the rotunda of the Capitol around 5 pm.  The CHP told them the building was closed around 6:15 or so and began arrests a few minutes later.

As we have noted for some time, pensions really are not a crisis at the state level.  Nevertheless, the biggest push has been to fix them at the state level as though pensions were what was driving the current budget crisis.

We have pointed out numerous times that the current budget crisis is actually a revenue crisis caused by what some are now calling the Great Recession.  State spending is actually at its lower level in real dollars in decades.  Yet we retain around a $15 billion deficit, give or take for the latest adjustments.

I have long since ceased to care about people’s personal infidelity as it comes to politics.  I understand people like to relate character to elected officials.  Certainly when it comes to issues of public trust, like corruption in politics, character matters.

But I am less than convinced that character as a whole makes any difference as to whether a person is capable of carrying out faithfully the obligations of office.  And so, if I have to choose between two people I agree with on the issues, I may choose the better person for the purposes of breaking a tie.

Part of the Governor’s plan for pension reform is to study a hybrid plan which would typically consister of a smaller defined benefit pension plan, which is currently utilized, combined with some sort of defined contribution plan, normally associated with 401(k)s.

In defined contribution plans, employers do not incur unfunded pension liabilities, since the contribution portion is defined rather than the output or the benefit.  There is an advantage, thus, to the employer but it increases the risk to the employee.

Adult day health is a service provided to those family members who have a loved one so profoundly disabled, s/he cannot remain in the home alone.  While family members are working during the week, the loved one must have a safe environment to reside in during the day, and cannot be without supervision.  Examples of such disabled people are those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, stroke victims, and the like.

Davis passed its parcel tax on May 4 with a bare supermajority of 67.2 percent of the vote.  They were not alone, as Dan Walters reports this morning, “Earlier this month, voters in 13 Northern California school districts passed judgment on proposed ‘parcel taxes’ – a form of property taxes not based on value.”

Mr. Walters continues, “The outcomes were not surprising. All of the districts were in relatively affluent communities that tend toward liberal politics. Their voters decided that enhancing education for their children, grandchildren and neighbors was worth taxing themselves.”

Local official are bracing for the May revise to the state’s budget.  The Governor was able to close a portion of the more than twenty-five billion dollar deficit through an initial round of cuts.  However, his plan was to extend the tax increases to deal with most of the remainder of the budget deficit.

Politics have derailed this effort and it appears increasingly likely that the budget gap will be closed through an all-cuts budget, despite a strong majority of the public who prefer the opportunity to at least vote on the Governor’s tax extension package.

One of my chief complaints about the management of the budget deficit in the City of Davis was the state of denial the former city manager was in, and thus by extension the rest of the city, most particularly city employees and to some extent the broader community.

As we look to a new city manager, we must keep in mind the fact that, just because things are not as bad here as elsewhere does not mean we are not on the brink.  The brink being looking down the barrel of huge increases in the cost of pensions and retiree insurance, based on huge and growing unfunded liabilities.

While Governor Brown has had some success in his plan to close the budget deficit, his plan has hit a number of critical stumbling blocks.  It is well known that the Governor is now unlikely to get a chance for voter approval of a tax extension.

Another key provision of the his plan was the elimination of redevelopment and the transfer of those funds to state purposes.  Last week, the Legislative Counsel declared the Governor’s redevelopment plan unconstitutional.

Unions and other defenders of the current pension system are fighting back with a new website launched yesterday called “DontScapegoatUs.com.”

The website strongly criticizes eight figures who they say are leading the charge to change public pensions.  These include Dan Pellissier, president of California Pension Reform; Marcia Fritz, executive director of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility; and an “anonymous out-of-state billionaire.”

Most Californians are very concerned that the state’s budget deficit will result in cuts to public schools, the area of the budget they most want to protect, according to a statewide survey released earlier this week by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

According to the poll, strong majorities of Californians (68%), likely voters (65%), and public school parents (74%) say the quality of K–12 education will suffer if cuts are made.

Both the media and Republicans slammed Governor Jerry Brown’s contract deal with the prison guards.  However, Governor Brown struck back, arguing that “the deal is virtually identical to pacts his Republican predecessor made with other unions that they readily supported.”

However, critics say that the proposed contracts will not cut state spending by nearly enough.

We took up the public pension issue primarily based on what was happening to local governments as the result of increased pension plans in the early part of the last decade, and rising public employee salaries.

From the standpoint of local government, the need for statewide pension reform exists because local government cannot roll back their pension obligations or change the rules under which they and CalPERS operate, but the legislature can change many of those things.

The key to understanding politics is to understand that most political claims are largely political spin.  It is not that they are manufactured lies (at least most of the time), but rather that they are claims taken out of context and presented without nuance or qualification.

The sophisticated political observer learns to take such claims with a grain of salt and not to merely repeat these claims as facts.

As the California governor and legislature are being forced to find new ways to cut fourteen billion dollars in order to balance the California budget, after Governor Jerry last week dropped plans to find ways to get four Republican legislators to back his tax extension, voters have come up with their solution.

A new poll released last week showed strong and bipartisan support for raising taxes on the wealthiest state residents – those making over $500,000 per year, according to the poll.

There was a mixed reaction to Governor Jerry Brown’s 12-point pension reform plan that he unveiled on Thursday.  Five of the proposals are described as “proposals under development.”

Unions argued that the proposal should take place at the collective bargaining table, while reform groups called it “unambitious,” and Republicans said that, while it is a good start, they would prefer something put before the voters.

On Tuesday, Governor Jerry Brown made the announcement that he was ending negotiations with Republicans in an effort to extend taxes to resolve the budget deficit that remains after the spending cuts were passed last week.

In a video statement Governor Brown said, “Today I have broken off discussions with the Republican Party in Sacramento regarding solutions to our budget crisis.”

One of the most contentious issues that has arisen with regard to the new Governor’s budget has been a proposal to eliminate redevelopment agencies in California. 

How serious a threat was this?  Serious enough that the city has already authorized bonds to encumber as many redevelopment projects as possible.