Local Pension Systems Over $130 Billion in Debt
California Common Sense (www.cacs.org) and the Stanford Institute for Economics and Poilcy Research (SIEPR) published a new report on local pension systems February 21, showing that the largest independent systems are over $130 billion in debt. This is more than three times their annual budgets! Much attention, in both policy research and broader political circles, […]
Stanford Students Seek Governor Brown’s Cooperation to Make State Spending More Transparent
While Governor Brown has
repeatedly called for a transparent budget process, his office recently denied
a public records’ request submitted on behalf of California Common Sense (CACS)
seeking the state’s checkbook. It raises the question: why would the Governor’s
Office block a request for transparency?
Here
are the facts. In early April, CACS began seeking the state’s checkbook to
build a transparency portal and make government financial data more open. To
ensure the request was deliverable, we spoke with the Department of Finance. We
were dismayed to learn that despite the fact that the Controller, Treasurer,
Department of Finance, and multiple committees in the legislature all manage
different aspects of the state’s finances, there
is no central checkbook for our state. The Department of Finance informed
us that we would have to submit separate public records request to each
individual state entity to get detailed data.
On
April 17, CACS submitted a public records request to every entity listed in the
state budget in order to obtain each entity’s checkbook. On April 26 Erin Peth,
Deputy of Legal Affairs for the Governor’s Office, contacted us on behalf of
all entities controlled by the Governor’s offices. She authorized all entities
in the executive branch an extra 14 days to allow them to evaluate whether they
had responsive documents.