Former Democrat turned Decline-To-State Assemblyman Juan Arambula of the Central Valley queried the Legislative Analyst, Mac Taylor, as to the sum total of California state governments aggregated liabilities (all of our long term debt). The response that Arambula received from Taylor is attached below, and is a "must read" for all FlashReport leaders. The amount of liability is nothing short of staggering, and Taylor organizes the types and specifics of the liabilities in a way that is easy to digest — even for non policy-wonks (like me).… Read More

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Next Monday the legislature will reconvene after their summer recess. Californians can then look forward to a marathon session of more attacks on their pocket books and freedom. One of the bills that’s working its way through the system is SB 54, by Senator Mark Leno. When the bill was introduced in January, it was designed to ban health insurers from charging individuals higher premiums based on their gender. The bill made it all the way through the Senate and into the Assembly—without any amendments—until June 30th, when it became a “gut and amend” bill. For those unfamiliar with the legislative jargon, a gut and amend essentially means that a bill’s content is completely removed and replaced with an entirely new subject, or the author is changed.

After its gut and amend, SB 54 went from a bill about healthcare to a bill that will… Read More

It should be alarming to everyone that, according to a new report, California’s Hidden Deficit: Unemployment Insurance Fund Owes $2.6 Billion, released jointly by ProPublica and the California Report, that state government is going into massive, multi-billion dollar debt to (to the tune of $30 million more each day) in order to pay out what appear to be unsustainable benefits ($$) to those who have lost their jobs. You can read the report here, and listen to it here.

According to ProPublica…

Seventeen states have been forced to borrow federal money because their unemployment insurance trust funds have run dry — but even among this group one state stands out from the rest.

California, which now owes $2.6 billion,… Read More

It’s no secret that California prison costs are out of control.

What is lesser known is that prison costs have escalated sharply due to personnel costs, not because of an increase in prisoners (prisoner population growth has stayed well below the rate of inflation and general state population growth in the past 20 years).

California Youth Authority (CYA) is a good example of employment growth gone wild. Look at this chart and you’ll see that in the past 10 years the youth prisoner population has decreased dramatically while personnel have decreased only modestly, which has led to a flip flop in the prisoner to employee ratio.

Another way to look at it: California’s youth prison-to-employee ratio was 2 to 1 in 1999 and now that stat has flipped to 1 to 2.

Before federal judges look at releasing 44,000 prisoners into our neighborhoods they ought to look at the far less dangerous move of trimming costs at CYA.… Read More

Three Federal Judges, who are virtually unaccountable, have declared that California felons deserve better living conditions than our troops in Iraq. Without regard to consequences against the public or to state budget issues, they have now ruled that the only way to accommodate these prisoners is to release about 25% of them. The 160,000 males in our state prisons are all there on felony charges. Local judges do not sentence people to state prison for non-serious convictions. But the Federal Judges say that about 40,000 must be released from prison.

There is only one right way to do this. That is to contact God and have Him send the Governor a list of those men who have truly charged their heart and their behavior. Men who, once released, will never commit a crime again; men for whom time behind bars has worked to end their life of crime. Short of contacting God there is no good way to build a list of who should be released. The Governor has proposed a combination of felons who have a short amount of time left on their sentence and those who are elderly. Neither of these criteria guarantees no future crimes will be committed.

Who are these… Read More

Saturday’s Union-Tribune front-page-local-section news was that the current top fundraiser in next year’s campaign for San Diego County Sheriff is also vying for the police chief position in Chula Vista. Political watchers are buzzing about the impact on the sheriff’s race.

Yet, the persistent rumors of David Bejarano being interested in the chief’s job have been swirling for weeks. Kudos to Tanya Sierra and her colleagues at the UT for getting someone to confirm it for the record.

Despite the rumors, it was clear to me and others — or so we may have thought — that no one at the City of Chula Vista would be confirming any such thing. Personnel matters are, after all, private for a reason, even in the public sector. Just as many of us have at one time or another applied for a job while not wanting our current employer to know we are "looking," applicants are typically protected from such disclosure. As well, it should be noted that appropriate protocol would also dictate that if Bejarano were… Read More

Chris Cillizza, a well respected Beltway Pundit, handicaps the CA Gov Primaries thusly:

4. California governor (Republican primary): Handicapping this race is next to impossible. Supporters of former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman point to her fundraising success, her wealth and her business profile as evidence that she is a national star in the making. Backers of state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who also is wealthy, argue that Whitman is all show and no substance, and that voters will see through her consultant-heavy campaign. Still others believe that neither Whitman nor Poizner is the sort of candidate that California Republican primary voters are looking for and believe that a true conservative could get in the race and win the primary. 3. California governor (D): The story lines in the Democratic gubernatorial race are the stuff of great fiction. One candidate is running for the job he held more than three decades ago and… Read More