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Reporting from Sacramento — California electricity users have paid $700 million in surcharges for research on clean and efficient energy production, but not all of the money may have been well spent and the program should be overhauled or killed, state officials say in a new report. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor has concluded .. about 10% of the money collected by the California Energy Commission was spent on research not directly related to the purpose of the surcharges. Questionable grants .. research on deforestation, salmon habitat restoration and "the potential impact of climate change on bird distribution," .. ... The...

It’s official. In the Legislative Analyst’s initial eight-page summary of the budget approved by lawmakers in the early hours of the 100th day of the fiscal year it’s supposed to dictate spending for, the conclusion is that the package is unlikely to balance and certainly won’t improve the state’s chronic gap between spending commitments and revenue. “We estimate that well over two-thirds of the Legislature’s 2010-11 budget solutions are one-time or temporary in nature,” the analyst says in the top right-hand corner of Page 2. “This means that California will continue to face sizable annual budget problems in 2011-12 and...

A new Legislative Analyst's Office report predicts California's early-childhood education program will lose $45 million per year under a cigarette-tax-for-cancer-research ballot measure proposed by former state Senate president and 2010 Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata. The education program, First 5, would lose about $8.66 million in the Bay Area, including about $2.2 million from Santa Clara County, $1.7 million from Alameda $1.1 million from Contra Costa and $785,000 from San Mateo, according to a breakdown provided by Alameda County First 5 CEO Mark Friedman — and that's why early-childhood education advocates could end up joining tobacco companies and anti-tax groups...

California will face massive budget shortfalls through at least 2014 without immediate action by lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Legislature's nonpartisan budget analyst said Tuesday. In the midst of high unemployment, shaky consumer confidence and plummeting investments, the state needs a slew of tax increases and spending cuts to resolve a $27.8 billion problem over the next 20 months, Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor said. Those budgetary actions also would help narrow annual deficits of about $22 billion in subsequent years. While California faced a larger budget gap in 2002-03 under then-Gov. Gray Davis, Taylor said the longer projected duration...

State officials grappling with a $14.5 billion budget deficit could find they have a bigger problem than they thought. The legislative analyst's office is scheduled to release its evaluation of Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger's budget proposals and projections on Wednesday amid continuing signs of a deteriorating economy and lower-than-anticipated state revenue. When he released his budget plans last month, Schwarzenegger proposed across-the-board cuts and more borrowing to deal with a deficit then projected to reach $14.5 billion over the next 18 months. But he conceded Saturday that the deficit could end up being larger than expected. "You can only project," he...

The Legislature's nonpartisan fiscal watchdog says prison guards already earn enough money and don't need a 5 percent pay raise proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill says the state can't afford raises for 30,000 prison guards as it battles a widening budget gap. Veteran guards draw nearly $74,000 in salaries - not counting overtime and annual benefits worth $16,000. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, welcomes the analysis. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent $2 million to defeat Nunez' proposal on Tuesday's ballot for term limit changes that would have let Nunez and Senate leader Don...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that the state could balance its budget next year with revenue from bigger Indian casinos is unrealistic, a report released Friday by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst says. Schwarzenegger's proposal to let tribes install some 22,500 new slot machines and then collect more than $500 million in new fees and taxes from them is critical to his plan to wipe out the state's chronic budget deficit next year. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who in recent weeks has blasted the governor's spending plan for relying on rosy revenue projections, on Friday took aim at its...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California can expect a tax windfall for the next budget year that is $2.3 billion more than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger forecast in his budget projection last month, the nonpartisan legislative analyst's office said Wednesday. But rather than celebrate by increasing spending, the governor should instead direct the unanticipated money toward closing the state's multibillion dollar structural deficit, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said. The Republican governor's budget plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 provides a 7 percent boost in spending over the current fiscal year without raising taxes, thanks mostly to additional tax revenue. Most...

It contains such off-putting phrases as "average growth and standard deviation" and "short-term elasticity," but a 20-page report issued Thursday by the Legislature's budget analyst is one of the most important documents ever to surface in the Capitol. The report, entitled "Revenue Volatility in California," provides statistical proof for what followers of state budgetary politics have known for years: California's state and local tax system is a mess and lies at the heart of its chronic budget crisis. A complex, intertwined set of political, economic and demographic factors has changed a once-stable system of taxation - personal and corporate income...