This week theCalifornia Policy Center(CPC) released 2013 payroll and pension data (the most recent data available) onTransparentCalifornia.com, the largest ever online database of California state and local government employee pensions, salaries, and benefits. The data shows that public compensation in California is growing more out of control, threatening the solvency of the state and local governments.

This new 2013 data includes pension data from the big state pension systems and payroll data from state agencies, counties, the CalState system, and community colleges. It shows egregious examples of misplaced taxpayer funds. Most notably, one assistant fire chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department earned a pension payout of $998,456. On the payroll side, the Alameda County Administrator made $654,000 in total compensation in 2013, while her assistant made $338,000.

For anyone who wants to view – and download – information from the most comprehensive collection of pay, benefit, and pension data ever compiled for California’s state and local… Read More

Part ll in a two part series. Part l can be found here.

Last week I wrote about a recent Senate Budget Committee cap and trade hearing and the billions of dollars expected to be generated by the Air Resource Board’s cap and trade auctions.

One of the issued I posed was the original purpose of passage of AB 32, the legislation under which the cap and trade hearings are conducted.AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, established the goal of reducing… Read More

[Publisher’s Note: We are pleased to present this original commentary from Neel Kashkari, Republican Nominee for Governor of California. — Flash]

The Legislature’s budget powerfully demonstrates how out of touch Sacramento is with the rest of California. While so many California families struggle to make ends meet, the Legislature approved a $156 billion budget plan that will set another spending record and is more than $15 billion higher than the 2013-14 budget.

Per Gov. Jerry Brown’s wishes, the Legislature is hammering working families by increasing what they pay at the gas pump to fund his $68 billion pet High Speed Rail project. Starting next year, Cap and Trade regulations go into effect and will raise the price of gasoline on all Californians by about 12 cents per gallon. These higher taxes will deposit billions more per year into the state’s Cap and Trade fund. And under the Legislature’s budget, not only will $250 million be directed from the Cap and Trade account towards High Speed Rail this coming fiscal year, but 25 percent of all future Cap and Trade taxes… Read More

How can you tell we are in an election year? Look at the various pieces of legislation where the once foe is now a friend, but after Nov. 6th, will probably become a foe again.

There is no clearer example of election year hypocrisy than SB 270, which seeks to ban plastic grocery bags and impose a minimum 10-cent tax on all paper bags, with no price cap on what store owners could charge.

What came across – at first glance – as an effort to “improve our environment” has morphed into an attack on both recyclable plastic and paper bags and to further complicate things, the new proposed bags under SB 270… Read More

Legislators can congratulate themselves on approving an on-time budget. Although this budget contains large spending increases, thankfully it does not raise taxes.

What’s missing is the broad-based tax relief we need to spur jobs and stimulate growth across our entire economy.

In addition, the Legislature missed yet another opportunity to defund the bullet train and eliminate the fire tax.

The Governor should wield his veto pen aggressively to trim wasteful spending. We can and should do more to pay down debt and bolster our rainy day fund.… Read More

(Editor’s Note: Following is the text of the floor speech delivered by Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff on the proposed 2014-15 California budget)

All things considered this is not a bad budget framework. There are some bills that our caucus will vote for today, and some that we won’t. We agree with many items in your budget plan – like the additional funding for K-14 education and making headway by paying down $10 billion of the $340 billion wall of debt.

We’d like to have a bipartisan budget that we can all feel good about, but this was a… Read More

Profligate: adjective; recklessly prodigal or extravagant.

Given the experience of the recent recession, one would think that our state political leadership would have learned the dangers of profligate public spending. The most recent economic bust, and the dot com bust which preceded it, should have served as a stark reminder about the consequences of growing government faster than economic growth and the failure of not planning for another… Read More

[We are pleased to offer this original commentary from Orange County Supervisor and longtime FR friend John Moorlach. The COIN ordinance described below appears on the Board agenda tomorrow – Flash]

Eight years ago, then Orange County Register reporter Norberto Santana opened his piece, “The Art of the O.C. Deal (Orange County Register, August 6, 2006),” with the following observation: “When people see the board of supervisors vote on a labor deal, what they don’t know is that most often, an agreement has already been reached in private. And it’s perfectly legal.”

The root cause of fiscal distress for many municipalities is the negotiated bargaining unit agreements. The promise of future benefits could not be feasibly be paid. And most would have told you so if they were asked about the sustainability of the deal points. But when the public is not aware of the contract details until after they are agreed to, it is too late. Shouldn’t the experience of this obvious flaw in the process give those who come after a strong reason to open the negotiation process? Yes, it should.

Can you imagine a… Read More