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Former Pentagon DOD analyst Larry Franks has surrendered to the FBI on classified document charges. Follow link for story.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill suggested new ways Thursday to solve the state's budget problems, including suspending the after-school initiative championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before the actor turned politician. Though the program hasn't begun, Hill said it could soon add $424 million to the state's bills while California remains in a budget crisis. Schwarzenegger, who headed the Inner-City Foundation to provide after-school programs for children, successfully qualified and passed Proposition 49 on the 2002 ballot. Days after Hill suggested revenues are up $2.2 billion due to an improving economy, she labeled the governor's measure - which gives...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An improved economy could leave the state with a budget surplus of nearly $3 billion in mid-2006, but California would still face deficits of at least $3 billion to $4 billion in the following years, the legislative analyst said Tuesday. Analyst Elizabeth Hill warned that the annual deficits would climb to nearly $10 billion if the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger don't agree on ongoing ways to eliminate at least $5 billion in red ink. That could happen through spending cuts, tax increases or a combination of the two, said Brad Williams, director of budget...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to provide prescription drug discounts to the uninsured "provides a reasonable starting point," the Legislative Analyst's Office said Thursday, but the report suggests stiffening his voluntary approach with drug manufacturers. Lawmakers should add an automatic trigger replacing Schwarzenegger's voluntary rebate proposal with mandatory incentives if drug makers fail to keep promises to cut prices significantly, the analyst said. That alternative would likely bring consumers larger discounts on more drugs, but result in a lengthy court challenge, the analyst said. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman praised the report for recognizing that the administration is offering "the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the advisory National Intelligence Council says he is not optimistic the United States and its allies can change Iran's intention of building a nuclear capacity. "I am somewhat more optimistic - somewhat, I emphasize - that we can, through diplomacy and a combination of pressure and inducements, keep them on track," council Chairman Robert Hutchings said in an interview Monday, his last day on the job. Senior U.S. officials suspect that Iran is continuing work on a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy-generation...

January 15, 2005 -- A hotshot Wall Street bond analyst was fired from his $4 million-a-year job for putting this fake photo of himself as a woman being swept off her feet on teh cover of a business report. Andrew Susser, 39, of Banc of America, was rated the past three years as the No. 1 analyst covering casinos and hotels — and the prank may also cost him his annual bonus, which could be an additional $5 million, insiders say. Bonuses are due in four weeks, said one company source, but won't be paid for people who are fired....

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst warned Wednesday that while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $111.7 billion budget plan solves next year's problem, the state still faces big deficits in the future because spending remains out of balance with tax income. But Analyst Elizabeth Hill also advised against Schwarzenegger's proposed long term solution to the problem - a constitutional amendment that would trigger accross-the-board cuts when revenues fail to meet spending obligations. Hill said the measure, which Schwarzenegger wants to put before voters in a special election this year, would put even more spending "on cruise control" while undermining the Legislature's...

NEW YORK - The top analyst at the CIA is resigning next year, joining more than a dozen agency officials who have stepped down since Porter Goss became the Director of Central Intelligence, NBC News has learned....

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SACRAMENTO — The plan to overhaul California's bureaucracy ordered up by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vastly exaggerates the amount of potential savings and would do little to reduce the state's ongoing budget shortfall, the state nonpartisan legislative analyst's office reported Friday. The office, which lawmakers of both parties look to for independent advice on budget matters, says that even if all the recommendations in the governor's California Performance Review were adopted, the savings would be less than half the projected $32 billion over five years. It would be closer to $10 billion to $15 billion, the report says. And much of...

SACRAMENTO - Although he has criticized past budgets that did little to cut the state's spending imbalance, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's own proposal for next year relies too much on loans, accounting gimmicks and one-time solutions, according to a nonpartisan analysis released Monday. By withdrawing a number of big spending cuts he proposed in January, the governor has missed an opportunity to attack the state's spending problem and instead would once again push the tough choices into the future, said Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill. "The bottom line is that we've lost a number of ongoing solutions from the January plan, plus...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget proposal is a realistic first step toward solvency, but leaves a $6 billion hole in the following fiscal year and relies on several billion dollars of shaky assumptions, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said Tuesday.</p> <p>Hill said that the Legislature should consider tax increases to help bridge the remaining gap -- a move that the Republican governor has said he will not make.</p>

<p>Gov. Gray Davis has offered a "precariously balanced" revised spending plan that will strap lawmakers with formidable budget holes in future years, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said Monday.</p> <p>The $100 billion plan, built around borrowing, fails to bring California's spending into line with its revenues, according to the initial review by the Legislature's nonpartisan budget adviser.</p>

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Legislature's budget analyst says Gov. Gray Davis' plan to raise $8.3 billion in income, sales and tobacco taxes wouldn't adequately fund his proposal to shift billions of dollars in state programs to local governments. Analyst Elizabeth Hill says the taxes sought by the governor would grow at a somewhat lower rate than the programs local governments would administer. Davis is proposing to shift several state programs, including mental health and substance abuse, child care, long-term care and court security programs, to local governments to save more than $8 billion. Davis wants to raise the sales tax...

<p>Meeting Gov. Gray Davis' goal of cutting the state's payroll by $470 million without cuts to state employee salaries or benefits would cost 7,000 state workers their jobs, legislative analysts told lawmakers Tuesday.</p> <p>If job cuts were applied evenly across the state, more than 2,400 of the job cuts would occur in the five-county Sacramento-area region. Thirty-five percent of all state employees work in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado, Yolo and Solano counties.</p>