Cross posted at HealthyCal.org

A plan unveiled this week by Senate Democrats to shift billions of
dollars in services from the state to the counties might make
government more efficient. But it won’t help balance the budget.

The Democrats are proposing to shift several health, social service and
criminal justice programs to California’s 58 counties, but they are
also proposing to transfer the money to pay for the programs. Some of
that money would come from tax increases.

The proposal would shift juvenile parole services to counties, along
with the responsibility for jailing and supervising certain low-level
offenders convicted of drug and property crimes.

California politics is feeling the brunt of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Besides the issue of offshore drilling becoming a key component in the 15th Senate District special election, Democrats in the legislature see the oil spill opening the door to a major revenue source for funding California governments.

Both the Senate and Assembly Democrats’ budget plans are built on a foundation of taxing oil extracted from within the Golden State. True, efforts to install an oil severance tax have been around long before the Gulf spill, but the oil industry has become a particularly juicy target in the eyes of many legislators since the spill.

Yesterday, the Senate Democrats offered a plan to realign programs as a responsibility of local governments and offered a number of revenue raising proposals to fund the transition. Chief among them were an oil severance tax, removing tax changes offered businesses last year and making permanent an increase in the vehicle license fee.

California counties are crashing on checking and sampling signatures before a Thursday deadline to qualify initiatives for the November ballot. The procrastination, er… late turn-in of a half-dozen measures has created uncertainty.

What’s also created uncertainty is this: there’s no real rule on how counties can count when they face multiple measures and short time limits. Do they count the stuff that comes in first? Or the measures that come with the most possible signatures? Or the initiative that seems more broadly important? It’s not clear. State law sets the deadlines for how quickly counties must count signatures, but not how they do so.

There are two things to be done here. The first is to give counties some clarity, perhaps legislatively. A suggested rule of thumb: the initiative whose backers are first to submit should be counted first.

It generates few headlines, so many taxpayers are unaware that local
governments continue to pump millions of dollars of tax increments —
property tax revenue usually withheld from schools and other essential
services — to fund pet projects that may not be in the public
interest. This is all done under the guise of "Community
Redevelopment."   

One of the most common misuses of redevelopment funds is to bribe
businesses, like auto malls or big box stores, to relocate in a
particular community.   The result is often a bidding war between
cities, each trying to outdo the others to provide the most generous
subsidies and tax breaks to land a favored business.  Reforms enacted
in 1994 which permit tax sharing designed to address this problem have
only been partially successful.

It is hard to find a taxpayer who thinks that government should be in
the business of using taxpayer dollars to pick winners and losers in
the private sector economy, and this is why local officials try to
operate their redevelopment schemes with as little notice as possible.
However, when the deals go sour, it is hard to keep these expensive
failures under wraps. 

This is an important week for sizing up what the November ballot will look like as the Secretary of State is set to declare by week’s end what initiatives have qualified for the ballot. County registrars are frantically counting signatures on six initiative measures so see if they qualify for the ballot.

However, the final catalogue of measures on the ballot may not be set for a while.

The water bond measure placed on the ballot for November by the legislature and governor could be removed. All ready stories are circulating that raising funds for the measure has been more difficult that anticipated. On top of that, the measure has been heavily criticized for its pork-barrel nature, including items that were placed in the bond just to capture legislative votes.

Unemployment
ticked down a little in California in May. Good news? Well, maybe –
depends on where you work.

Last week, Meg Whitman made an appearance on behalf of Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, the Republican candidate in Senate District 15’s Special Election on Tuesday.

The event for Sam was a fundraiser featuring Meg in what I believe may be her first appearance on behalf of a partisan candidate since becoming the Republican nominee for Governor of California.

It took place at the lovely gardens of Peter and Dennise Carter in Los Gatos.  Their home, built in the 1890s, is a lovely old Victorian that they have refurbished. Their neighbor, Mayor Mike Wasserman came by to greet guests and was part of the program.  State Senate Republican Leader Dennis Hollingsworth was on hand as well as a number of local elected officials and candidates.

In his June 17, 2010 post, "The Role of the Investment Return Assumption," David Crane stated that "state pension costs have risen 3,500% over the last ten years."

Crane points out the Department of Finance just issued updated figures and the correct figure is 2,500%.

Fox and Hounds Daily strives to offer the most accurate and correct information.

Dear Jerry,

Please, please shut up before you screw this whole thing up.

You may not realize it, but you enter the race for governor – by the way, glad to see that you’re in the race and campaigning full-speed – with San Francisco Bay-sized reservoirs of good will. This feeling is present of people of both parties (conservative Republicans remember your frugality), and is particularly strong among Californians who remember you or have parents or grandparents who remember you and your father fondly.