Budget and Finance

Back to homepage

Students Protest For Entitlements

Katy Grimes: On the west steps of the Capitol today a small group of college students protested the proposed cuts to public university and community college budgets — schools which the California taxpayers already subsidize. And right along with the

Read More

Poisonous Budget Spider Uncovered

FEB. 28, 2011 BY WAYNE LUSVARDI There is a line in Sir Walter Scott’s novel Ivanhoe where a gentleman is… advised to remember that all the wealth he had acquired by sucking the blood of miserable victims had but swelled

Read More

Pensions Before The Poor!

FEB. 28, 2011 By TROY ANDERSON For years, officials in California have used accounting gimmicks, stimulus funds and the state credit card to keep the safety net intact. But experts say the state may have run out of tricks. Facing

Read More

Can California Mimic Wisconsin?

FEB. 28, 2011 If a real union reform battle can take place in Wisconsin and spread to other liberal rust-belt, union-dominated states, then it could perhaps happen in California —- although it might take some time, given the political dynamic

Read More

Is An All-Cuts Budget Ahead?

FEB. 25, 2011 By KATY GRIMES SACRAMENTO — There is never a dull moment with California Gov. Jerry Brown. In a surprise visit to a budget committee meeting yesterday, Brown threatened to produce a budget that cuts $26.6 billion from

Read More

“Balance” Is Missing From Budget

FEB. 25, 2011 By KATY GRIMES SACRAMENTO — As the Budget Conference Committee hearings began on Wednesday, Republicans challenged the frequent use of the word “balanced” for describing the tax increases and budget cuts within the governor’s budget proposal. With

Read More

Bulldoze Williamson Act Subsidies?

Feb. 24, 2011 By DAVE ROBERTS There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget cuts, but the outcry over elimination of state subsidies for millionaire landowners may be overkill. Brown has zeroed out funding

Read More

2/3 Wis. 8th Graders Not Proficient

John Seiler: Wisconsin teachers have been on strike. And they object to Gov. Scott Walker’s move to end or limit collective bargaining. They’re also the highest-paid teachers in the Midwest. So, how well are they teaching? This is from CNS

Read More

CA Budget Still Needs Fumigation

Feb. 22, 2011 By JOHN SEILER As Gov. Jerry Brown and the state Legislature continue crafting a budget, skunks keep being thrown into the room. The biggest skunk is that the $146 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, CalSTRS, is effectively

Read More

Courts' 2-Billion-Buck IT Bust

FEB. 22, 2011 By KATY GRIMES While courtrooms across the state are being closed, courthouse employees furloughed and criminal and civil cases taking record time to come to trial, the Administrative Office of the Courts refuses to halt the implementation

Read More