LSPC and All of Us or None Holding Prop 47 RAP Sheet Day and Record Clearance in Sacramento

RAP Sheet Day:

*Need to bring: RAP Sheet & Identification (i.e. Drivers License or State ID).

Date: (Saturday) September 12, 2015 Time: 1:00PM-6:00PMAddress of Event: 4343 Williamsbourgh Dr., Sacramento CA 

Record Clearance Clinic:

*Need to bring: RAP Sheet and court documents that are relevant to Prop 47.

Date: (Saturday) October 17, 2015 Time: 1:00PM-6:00PM 

Address of Event: 4343 Williamsbourgh Dr., Sacramento CA

If you have any questions contact Aaliyah Muhammad:

Email: aaliyah@prisonerswithchildren.org

Phone: (916) 501-9988

Immigration bills benefited from a more engaged Gov. Brown

SACRAMENTO — Tom Ammiano was frustrated. 

Gov. Jerry Brown had refused to meet with him, said the Democratic assemblyman from San Francisco, to talk about the Trust Act. Ammiano had proposed it to prevent immigrants in the U.S. illegally from being turned over to federal officials for possible deportation when arrested by local authorities.

Eventually, Brown skewered the measure with his veto pen, saying the bill was "fatally flawed" because it might have let some serious criminals escape deportation.

That was last year. This year, things were different. Ammiano said the two had multiple meetings in Brown's office, where they discussed its threadbare carpet, their shared Roman Catholicism — and the Trust Act.

"He said, 'I have some tweaks,'" Ammiano recalled. "Then we talked turkey and … came up with what everybody could live with."

Brown signed the measure into law about a week ago, one of 11 immigrant-related bills he accepted this year. He also significantly expanded driver's licenses for immigrants without documents. He rejected a measure to allow noncitizens to serve on juries, but gave those in the U.S. illegally permission to be lawyers and signed a bill protecting them from employers who threaten to report their status.

Brown's embrace of new immigrant rights is a shift from three years ago, when he openly opposed the driver's license idea while running for governor. He signed a small handful of immigrant-rights bills last year, permitting driver's licenses for those eligible for temporary federal work permits and giving undocumented college students access to public financial aid. But mostly, he stayed focused on the state's budget morass.

Now, with the fiscal crisis behind him, legislators describe the governor as more approachable and engaged. Instead of being handed off to his staffers, they hashed out differences with him face to face.

It helped that the Legislature's 25-member Latino caucus, which led the charge on many immigrant bills, is mostly Democratic and that the party won supermajorities in both houses last November. This year's efforts also coincided with a new recognition of California's changing demographics: Even the Republican Party that once rallied voters against illegal immigrants has launched a Latino outreach effort.

"There is a change," said Brown, who is expected to run for reelection next year in a state where 20% of voters are Latino and 10% are of Asian descent. "It's in part the sheer numbers and participation by immigrants in the life of our communities. It's also the advocacy and impressive work of immigrant groups and their supporters."

…

The driver's license law was long in the making.

Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo began working on the issue in 1997, when he was first elected to the Legislature. He eventually persuaded lawmakers to pass a bill that Gov. Gray Davis signed in 2003.

Arnold Schwarzenegger canceled the measure later that year, after replacing Davis in the recall election.

Ten years on, "what [has] changed was the political leadership and … the political climate," Cedillo said in an interview last week.

Even so, the license expansion would have foundered this year but for one lawmaker's chance remark to Brown.

The bill's author, Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), planned to table it amid a fight over a distinguishing mark on the licenses — something Brown said federal law required.

With only one more day to go in the legislative session, Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) mentioned the stalled bill to the governor in a Capitol hallway. The senator said Brown, surprised, told him: "Send me the bill. I'll sign it."

Seizing the moment, DeLeon and a few colleagues revived the bill in the Senate, which passed it just hours before the Legislature adjourned. The Assembly quickly followed suit.

A couple of weeks later, more than 40 domestic workers — many of them Latino immigrants — were ushered into the governor's inner office, where they tearfully watched him sign another long-sought bill. It requires overtime pay for nannies, healthcare aides and other personal attendants, a goal of community activists since 2006.

Gov. Brown signs 10 bills to help homeless and foster youths

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed 10 bills that his office said will help protect “the most vulnerable Californians – homeless children and adults and foster youth.”

The measures include one that establishes "runaway and homeless youth shelters” as a new kind of group home and requires them to be licensed and overseen by the Department of Social Services.

There are an estimated 200,000 minors in California who are homeless, according to the California Research Bureau and the Council on Youth Relations' Homeless Youth Project.

Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley) authored AB 346 to address that category of the homeless population.

Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose) introduced a bill that allows counties to transfer bond money approved for construction of shelters for abused or neglected children to instead be used for shelters for runaway or homeless youths. Beall’s bill, which was signed by Brown, is SB 347.

The governor also signed a bill that provides that the fact that a child is homeless or an "unaccompanied minor"  is not, in and of itself, a sufficient basis for triggering the mandatory child abuse or neglect reporting laws.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) said his bill gives those serving foster youths discretion in cases where youths might otherwise be taken into police custody or returned to a home from which they have  fled.

“Allowing  mandated reporters to not report solely based on homelessness allows the youths to access services and the service providers that specialize in homeless youth services to effectively do their jobs,” Ammiano said in arguing for his AB 652.

The governor also signed legislation requiring that when a decision is made to place a foster child who is medically fragile, priority consideration be given to foster parents who are nurse practitioners. That bill by Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) is AB 1133.

Brown also signed a measure by Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) that requires social workers to periodically visit foster youths in their home placements and provides for the  foster youths to request a private conversation with his or her social worker.

Yee said his SB 342 is needed because in-home visits by social workers “are an essential  component of our child welfare system and are critical for ensuring the safety of children placed in out-of-home care."

via http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-gov-brown-signs-10-bills-to-help-homeless-and-foster-youth-20131002,0,2061191.story

Deal to ease prison crowding sails through Assembly

SACRAMENTO--A deal brokered by Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders to ease prison crowding passed with overwhelming approval in the Assembly on Wednesday.

By a 75-0 vote, lawmakers approved the proposal, announced Monday, under which the state would ask a panel of three federal judges for time to expand programs aimed at reducing new crimes by ex-cons.

If the judges reject an extension, the state would spend $315 million this year to increase prison capacity in time to comply with the court's order to shrink the prison population by about 9,600 inmates by the end of the year.

The deal broke an impasse over how to comply with the order that pits the governor, Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) and Republican legislative leaders against Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), who sought more funding to address drug abuse and mental illness.

Pérez, speaking on the floor, said the compromise "allows for us to  comply with the three-judge panel’s order but also would not allow for any inmates to be released early from prison."

He took pains to thank the Republican leaders in both houses for coming on board.

"This is a solution that truly was only possible because of the early bipartisan work between the governor, myself and the two Republican leaders," he said.

Even Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks), one of the most conservative lawmakers in the Capitol, chimed in to voice "rare support" of the speaker's comments.

The warm feelings did not extend to the federal courts. 

"We are here today because the federal courts have forced our hand," said Assemblyman Jeff Gorell(R-Camarillo).

"This is absurd. We ought to add extra desks so the judiciary can join us and continue to make decisions for this body," said Gorell. "It’s a ridiculous precedent."

The bill now heads to the Senate for final legislative approval.

LA Times -By Melanie Mason

PHOTO: Leftwing Nutjob 2011

California budget deal reached by Gov. Jerry Brown, lawmakers

By Mike Rosenberg and Sharon Noguchi

Staff writers

Posted:   06/11/2013 06:02:43 AM PDT

Updated:   06/11/2013 06:02:55 AM PDT

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown and California lawmakers on Monday reached a key agreement on K-12 education funding and other pivotal parts of the state's spending plan, which could set up one of the smoothest paths toward a budget in years.

Brown got his wish to keep intact most of the cuts made in previous years while dedicating most of the money from a newfound surplus to bolster public schools, with a particular emphasis on disadvantaged students. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, chipped away at restoring a few parts of the social safety net slashed during the recession.

Brown and lawmakers led by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assembly Speaker John Perez reached the deal on Monday afternoon,

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, after a budget meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown and Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, in Sacramento, June 10, 2013. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

five days before the full Senate and Assembly must approve the budget by a midnight Saturday deadline. A public announcement of the details is expected Tuesday.

The annual number-crunching debate no longer centers on whether the state's books are balanced but how much of a surplus should be spent. Unlike the last several years, the budget is now balanced -- largely because of cuts made in recent years, the $6 billion tax hike voters approved in November and the increased tax revenues that have come with the economic recovery.

Brown won perhaps the biggest battle -- which was over how much money will be available to spend. Lawmakers agreed to use Brown's $96.4 billion spending plan, $3.2 billion less than what the Democratic-controlled

Legislature wanted. That means the state would have a better chance of avoiding red ink but that fewer social programs will get extra funding.

Legislative budget committee chair Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and vice chair Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-San Fernando Valley, both said at a legislative budget committee meeting late Monday that they agreed to Brown's lower financial estimate "to reach a deal."

"As all budgets are acts of compromise, this budget would be no exception," Leno said, noting that if state revenues come in rosier, they could revisit boosting spending in January because "our safety net has been shredded in recent years."

Brown and lawmakers had also spent the last two weeks debating how to dole out the larger pie of money to K-12 schools that came from the Proposition 30 tax hikes. The compromise would increase money to K-12 schools by $2.1 billion, compared with Brown's original proposal of adding $1.6 billion, according to education consultant Ron Bennett.

School officials welcomed the news, partly because education might receive more state money -- a reversal of a five-year trend of reductions -- and also because the perennially tardy Legislature reached an agreement with the governor before its deadline.

"The fact they might be on the same page is a good sign," said Stephen McMahon, chief business officer of the San Jose Unified School District.

While compromising at the edges, Brown appears to have gotten the three key reforms he sought: to simplify the antiquated and Byzantine formulas for funding schools; to inject more equity and justice into funding; and to shift control away from the state toward county and district levels.

"The governor is a very pragmatic guy," said Kevin Gordon, who works as a Capitol lobbyist for school districts.

Instead of giving each school district separate pots of money for a variety of purposes, the state now will give districts one large chunk of money

Gov. Jerry Brown points to a chart showing the reduction of the budget deficit as he unveiled his proposed state budget at the Capitol in Sacramento, Jan. 10, 2013. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

plus more for hard-to-educate students.

Schools will get more money for poor students, English learners and foster children; districts with concentrated poverty will get even more.

That will help out districts like Oakland Unified. "It's a question of not only fairness but also a matter of economic competitiveness for our state," Oakland Unified spokesman Troy Flint said.

But for districts like San Jose Unified, some of that extra money could remain out of reach. The district's total of those three categories of disadvantaged students is 53 percent, McMahon said, just short of the 55 percent cutoff to qualify for the new poverty grant. Brown had wanted a 50 percent threshold but agreed to up that during negotiations.

Still, fattening the biggest pot of school funding has made suburban districts happier. "That was certainly our first concern," said Terry Koehne, spokesman for the San Ramon Valley Unified School District. "There were definitely winners and losers in the original proposal."

Although the budget compromise was hammered out early by legislative standards, it's still late for school districts, which have been crafting their 2013-14 budgets since January and must approve them by July 1.

So the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, for example, will base its budget on per-pupil revenue of $5,291 -- up from $5,000 this year, said Deputy Superintendent Chris Jew.

And districts remain cautious of more details yet to come, such as penalties for not reducing primary-grade class sizes, new oversight by county offices of education and whether the state will keep with past practice of not fully paying districts the funds it owes them.

"Until we get the details and the strings," Jew said, "I'm a little leery."

On social programs, there were more compromises. Steinberg, the Senate leader, and other lawmakers got their wish to spend $143 million in one-time funds on mental health programs and nearly $80 million to restore dental care for the poor starting in May, less money and a later implementation than what the Senate wanted. But the Senate lost its bid for an extra $50 million on Medi-Cal for children and another $32 million on nursing home programs.

The Assembly, meanwhile, secured extra funding for the CalWORKs welfare program and another $63 million will fund trial courts, less than the $100 million the Legislature wanted.

As the result of a measure approved by voters in 2010, the Legislature no longer needs a two-thirds majority to pass a budget -- a simple majority will now do. Before that change was enacted, the state began its fiscal year in July without an approved budget in 10 of the 11 prior years.

Via MercuryNews.com

Once facing fiscal doom, California enjoys surplus

By JUDY LIN

Associated Press

Published: Monday, May. 13, 2013 - 1:57 pm

Last Modified: Tuesday, May. 14, 2013 - 1:02 am

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California was a poster child for fiscal calamity during the Great Recession with budget deficits larger than the annual spending plans of many other states.

Its credit rating was the lowest of any state at one point and drawn-out budget fights forced state officials to hand out IOUs. Today, so much tax revenue is pouring in that lawmakers face a different problem: Too much money.

Gov. Jerry Brown is pledging to restore fiscal sanity to the state and wants to fortify funding for schools serving low-income students while paying down the state's short-term debt. He is expected to champion restraint Tuesday when he releases his updated spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Yet, his fellow Democrats who control both houses of the Legislature have ideas of their own. They want to spend money restoring safety-net programs for children, women and the poor that were eliminated or severely cut during the recession.

Many Democratic lawmakers want to restore adult dental care for the poor and expand mental health care. Doctors, hospitals and other health providers want the state to end a 10 percent Medi-Cal reimbursement rate cut. And children's and health advocates are pushing to restore health care services, if not expanded to all Californians.

Brown said last week that California needs to pay down its debt, which "frees up money" to spend on education, health care and other neglected needs.

H.D. Palmer, the governor's finance spokesman, said the governor believe that is the best way for the state to repair its finances. Standard & Poor's upgraded California's credit rating from A- to A in January and Fitch Ratings gave the state a positive outlook in March.

Brown included the additional sales and income tax revenue approved by voters last fall in the $97.6 billion general fund budget he announced in January. Since then, personal income taxes, which are the state's largest source of revenue, have come in ahead of the administration's estimates by $4.5 billion.

Budget experts say education is expected to take the largest share of that extra money under the state's complex school funding formula.

Brown is taking advantage of the surplus to push for a new way to fund K-12 schools. His plan would channel additional money to schools with high levels of low-income and non-English speaking children.

But that has received pushback from an unlikely source - Democratic lawmakers.

Many of them represent more affluent areas that would not receive the additional money Brown wants to funnel to the poorer school districts. Democratic lawmakers in the state Senate are proposing an alternative that does not include extra money for school districts where more than half of students are low-income.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said he supports more money for children from low-income families but believes the money should follow the child - even if he or she lives in an affluent community.

"There's give-and-take here; we don't issue dictates," Brown said. "But the idea of putting money where the kids have the biggest challenge in the schools or districts that have the biggest challenge because of the concentration, that's the core idea."

Brown and state lawmakers also will have to work out changes to the state's Medicaid program to get ready for the Affordable Care Act, which takes full effect next year.

While the state has agreed to expand Medi-Cal to some 1.4 million low-income residents, Brown and Democratic lawmakers disagree on details of the enrollment and implementation process. Brown also is pushing to reduce local government support for indigent care, a move opposed by health advocates.

Republicans say the governor is not as fiscally restrained as he claims to be. Brown is championing the $68 billion high-speed rail system despite a decline in public support and questions over how the project will be financed.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, said Democrats also have not done enough to address long-term obligations such as public pension underfunding.

Via Sacbee

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/13/5417200/democrats-at-odds-over-california.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/13/5417200/democrats-at-odds-over-california.html#storylink=cpy

California Tries to Guide the Way on Health Law

Members of the audience lined up to speak at a meeting of the California Health Benefit Exchange last month in Sacramento. 

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

SACRAMENTO — The meeting came to order, the five members of the California Health Benefit Exchange seated onstage with dozens of consumer advocates and others looking on. On the agenda: what to name the online marketplace where millions of residents will be able to shop for medical coverage under President Obama’s health care law.

 An adviser presented the options, meant to be memorable, appealing and clear. What about CaliHealth? Or Healthifornia?

Or Avocado?

“I am kind of drawn to Avocado,” declared Kim Belshé, a member of the exchange’s board of directors, which is hustling to make dozens of decisions as the clock ticks toward deadlines set by the law.

Delay and outright resistance to the health care overhaul might be the norm in much of the country, but not here. California — home to seven million uninsured people, more than any other state — is at the forefront of preparations for January 2014, when a controversial requirement that most Americans have medical coverage or pay a penalty takes effect.

So far, only 13 states and the District of Columbia have told the Obama administration they intend to set up the insurance exchanges that are supposed to provide a marketplace for people to buy health plans. None are being watched as closely as California, whose singular challenges, from the size, diversity and geographic spread of its uninsured population to its vast budget problems, make it stand out. Many feel a successful rollout here could convince other states with high numbers of uninsured residents that the law can be made to work for them.

“We are the example,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, an advocacy group. “If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere.”

The California Health Benefit Exchange has already hired 50 employees and is poised to hire 50 more. Construction of the Web portal through which some three million people are expected to buy insurance by 2019, and through which many others will likely enroll in Medicaid, is under way.

This fall, the board will seek bids from insurers to sell plans through the exchange, and it intends to have the portal up and running by next summer, several months before enrollment starts in October 2013.

Realizing that much of the battle will be in the public relations realm, the exchange has poured significant resources into a detailed marketing plan — developed not by state health bureaucrats but by the global marketing powerhouse Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, which has an initial $900,000 contract with the exchange. The Ogilvy plan includes ideas for reaching an uninsured population that speaks dozens of languages and is scattered through 11 media markets: advertising on coffee cup sleeves at community colleges to reach adult students, for example, and at professional soccer matches to reach young Hispanic men.

And Hollywood, an industry whose major players have been supportive of President Obama and his agenda, will be tapped. Plans are being discussed to pitch a reality television show about “the trials and tribulations of families living without medical coverage,” according to the Ogilvy plan. The exchange will also seek to have prime-time television shows, like “Modern Family,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and Univision telenovelas, weave the health care law into their plots.

“I’d like to see 10 of the major TV shows, or telenovelas, have people talking about ‘that health insurance thing,’ ” said Peter V. Lee, the exchange’s executive director. “There are good story lines here.”

Although the exchange will not start advertising until next year, the California Endowment, a foundation that has spent $15 million promoting the law, is running newspaper and television ads, including one in which the television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz exhorts viewers to “get educated, get engaged, get enrolled.” That campaign has targeted Hispanics, who make up more than half of the state’s uninsured population.

But for all the progress, California’s intractable budget woes loom as a threat to implementation here. Even with the federal government financing most of the insurance expansion, the state’s contribution could exceed $2 billion a year, according to an estimate that was made by the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who signed the legislation creating an insurance exchange here in September 2010, earlier than any other state. Diana S. Dooley, the state’s Health and Human Services secretary, said the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, was working on a new estimate.

Mr. Brown, while supportive of the law, has not spent much time talking it up publicly, in part, Ms. Dooley said, because he is “absolutely laser-focused on getting the budget balanced.”

To help close a $16 billion deficit, Mr. Brown made more than $1 billion in cuts from Medicaid and other health programs even though about a million of the Californians expected to gain coverage through the health care law by 2019 would get it through a prescribed expansion of Medicaid. (Those who buy private insurance through the exchange will be able to get federal subsidies to help cover the cost if they earn up to four times the federal poverty level, or currently $92,200 for a family of four.)

Mr. Brown is hoping voters will approve a package of temporary tax increases in November to avoid $6 billion more in cuts. Ms. Dooley said that without the tax package, carrying out the health law might be at risk, including the expansion of Medicaid.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as all bets are off,” she said. “I’m just saying nothing is protected.”

The exchange itself has so far been financed by three grants, worth $237 million, from the federal government. Most of the money is committed to consultants, including Accenture, which has a $327 million contract to build and support the initial operation of the enrollment portal.

Ms. Dooley said getting the enrollment system up and running in such a tight time frame was one of her biggest worries. The other, she said, was making sure the health plans sold through the exchange were affordable. The federal law lists 10 categories of “essential health benefits” that plans sold through exchanges must provide, but Ms. Dooley said those categories “go beyond what I would call essential.”

“It’s all good for consumers,” she said. “But somebody’s got to pay for it, and that’s going to go into the premium.”

Despite the full-throttle approach here, another uncertainty is the outcome of the presidential race. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has vowed to repeal the health care law and restructure Medicaid, not only scrapping the planned expansion but making the program much leaner. Even without a repeal, Republicans could undo the federal subsidies and other financing for the law if they won the presidency and even a narrow majority in the Senate.

“If the federal funding stopped,” Mr. Lee said, “we would be at a ‘press reset’ button.”

In a Field Poll released on Aug. 20, 54 percent of California voters said they supported the health care law, compared with 37 percent who said they were opposed. Support was strongest among blacks (88 percent) and Hispanics (67 percent), who together make up more than 44 percent of the state’s population. Voters of Vietnamese and Korean descent also firmly supported the law, but white and Chinese voters were more divided. The poll of 1,579 voters, conducted in July, has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Only 17 percent of respondents said they had seen, heard or read anything about the insurance exchange though. Still, 75 percent of those who are not insured through their employer or Medicare said they would be interested in using the exchange to shop for health insurance.

Mr. Lee said the fact that few people had heard of the exchange was “totally unsurprising.” A catchy new name might help spread the word, he said; a decision on Avocado and the other finalists should come next month.

“The fact that very few people have heard about us isn’t an issue,” Mr. Lee said. “Come back in a year.”

Reforming government step by step

SACRAMENTO — Good reform ideas are a dime a dozen. Look in any faculty lounge. But successful strategies for implementing those ideas are rare.

Espousing sweeping reform that can't be enacted because it's politically unacceptable is a common habit of profs, pols and pundits.

There also are idealists unwilling to compromise, who'd rather strike out than bunt the runner to the next base.

California Forward, a blue-ribbon reform group, is none of that. But the think tank provides a case study of how difficult it is to enact significant change when confronted by the status quo.

Not that every proposed reform is golden or all status quo rotten. But meaningful change usually requires both good policy and astute politics because, ultimately, competing interests and the public must sign off.

California Forward has been trying for years, with limited success. Formed in 2008 and financed by foundations, it was initially co-chaired by Leon Panetta, the current U.S. defense secretary who had been a congressman from Monterey and chief of staff for President Clinton.

"The principal dysfunction of Sacramento," Panetta told me back then, "is similar to what's happening in Washington: the inability of the elected leadership to come together and arrive at necessary compromises for solutions to the problems we face."

Little has changed.

California Forward has probably spent $20 million developing and pushing reforms, according to Panetta's replacement, former Democratic state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg. So far it hasn't been able to place its own reform on the ballot.

It was influential in promoting three reforms sponsored by others that did get approved by voters: independent redrawing of political districts, open state primaries and majority-vote budgets.

The redistricting and open primary reforms — designed to elect more pragmatists — kick in this year. The majority-vote budget took effect last year, sparing the state another summer of legislative stalemate caused by the old need for a two-thirds vote.

That process — enacting one reform at a time — is equivalent to bunting the runner along. Or, in reform lingo, call it incrementalism.

"The secret to reforming," Hertzberg says, "is understanding incrementalism and not trying to be so big and so bold. You've got to align interests." He's critical of "overzealous reformers" and people "just trying to stop something, rather than trying to do something."

Currently, California Forward is confronted by interests bent on stopping a proposed budget reform initiative it is trying to qualify for the November ballot. Behind-the-scenes resistance is coming from, you name it: labor, environmentalists, legislative wonks and Gov. Jerry Brown's strategists, who desire a clear field for the governor's tax-increase proposal.

The reform organization is collecting voter signatures — a $3-million project — and says it has almost enough to turn in for validating. It faces an early May deadline. But the interests want the group, at minimum, to back off and compromise on a more mundane measure. And it may do that.

As written, after two years in the making, the ambitious and complex initiative would:

-- Prevent the Legislature from expanding programs or granting tax breaks that cost the treasury more than $25 million unless it paid for them with spending cuts or tax increases.

This would seem to be a logical step to cure deficit spending.

But it's the equivalent of a dreaded spending limit, labor and Democrats complain. They note that a tax hike is virtually impossible for the Legislature to pass because new levies still require a two-thirds vote.

"It freezes in spending at the lowest point in the economy," says Dave Low, executive director of the California School Employees Assn. The provision is "pretty much fatal" for the initiative in labor's view, Low asserts.

-- Empower the governor to unilaterally cut spending in a fiscal emergency if the Legislature refuses.

That would be a huge shift of power to the governor, Democrats assert. And they're right.

But a fiscal emergency could be resolved by an old-fashioned solution: compromise.

-- Authorize local elected officials to tweak state laws to provide public services more efficiently, unless the Legislature objected. And local entities would get an extra $200 million in state revenue.

Oops! A little problem here. The idea of local politicians — particularly in conservative counties — reshaping a state law unless the dysfunctional Legislature vetoed the move is fraught with danger for labor and environmentalists.

It "creates very serious risks to environmental laws such as [those] protecting air quality, water quality, the coast and endangered species," complains Tom Adams, longtime activist at the California League of Conservation Voters.

Besides, Democrats point out, Sacramento doesn't have $200 million to spare for local government.

-- Change budgeting practices.

State budgets would be enacted for two years, rather than one. The budget would be updated in the second year. The idea is to plan ahead. Critics roll their eyes.

Agencies would be funded based on the performance of their programs. The Legislature passed such a bill last year and Brown vetoed it. Too much work, he implied.

The Legislature would have to spend the final summer of every two-year cycle conducting oversight of state programs. In an election year? Good luck.

No bill could be passed unless it had been in print for three days. That's to prevent end-of-session shenanigans. Great idea. But lawmakers would find a loophole.

My guess is California Forward will shelve the $25-million spending limit and local agency proposals and compromise with the Legislature on gubernatorial powers and budgeting changes.

Accept part of a loaf. The rest isn't cooked. Interests and a suspicious public have delicate appetites. They can digest only so much reform in one gulp.

george.skelton@latimes.com

via LA Times

Cost of public retiree health care soars in California

SACRAMENTO (AP) -- As Stockton contemplates a bankruptcy filing, cities, counties and school districts throughout California are grappling with the same issue that has led the delta port city to the brink of insolvency -- soaring costs for retiree health care.

 

San Francisco, which once allowed its public employees to qualify for full retiree medical benefits after working just five years, is projected to pay $153 million in retiree health care costs this year, about 5 percent of the city's general fund.

The Ventura County city of Thousand Oaks capped its contributions for retiree health care at $435 a month but still faces a $12.6 million unfunded liability for the perk, an amount equal to about 18 percent of the city's general fund budget.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school district, promises 100 percent lifetime health benefits to retirees, their spouses and dependents. It now faces $10.3 billion in long-term unfunded liabilities for the benefit, 1 1/2 times the district's annual budget.

And at the state level, retiree health care costs have ballooned from $560 million annually a decade ago to a projected $1.7 billion in the coming fiscal year, almost 2 percent of general fund spending.

The benefits' costs are expected to double for the state and local governments over the next 10 years.

"The problem with (retiree medical benefits) is that these promises were made back when insurance for medical cost $200 a month, and those costs have now quintupled. And nobody even put away a nickel," said Girard Miller, a public finance consultant based in Southern California who has testified about retirement funding before state panels.

The looming crisis in providing health care for government retirees is similar to the one involving public employee pensions. The difference is that the state, counties, cities and other entities have been pre-funding pension obligations, even though the benefits promised in most cases far outstrip the pool of money available to pay them.

Retiree health care has largely been handled on a pay-as-you-go basis, meaning the state and municipalities pay whatever bills come due each year. In each case, taxpayers are on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in unfunded obligations.

Both types of retirement benefits -- guaranteed pensions for life and family health care coverage after retirement -- are increasingly rare in the private sector.

In 2007, the year the recession began, Credit Suisse estimated that states and local governments nationwide were carrying $1.5 trillion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care costs.

It's hard to know exactly how much California cities, counties and school districts owe. Governments have had to report their long-term liabilities since 2008 under changes made by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, but the state controller's office says it tracks only the state government's obligations. It does not track the patchwork of retiree health benefits provided by local governments.

The only comprehensive survey of the benefits was completed in 2008 by the California Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission, a panel convened by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new reporting standard was taking effect.

The commission estimated that the state, cities, counties, school districts and other governmental entities in California faced at least $118 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree medical benefits -- about twice the amount taxpayers owed on public pensions at the time. Today, the unfunded liability for California's two main public pension funds is about $150 billion.

"I don't think people recognized how much exposure there was for government on this front, and also the fact that none or very little of this was pre-funded," said Anne Sheehan, who served as executive director of the Schwarzenegger commission.

Stockton City Manager Bob Deis said the city of 290,000 had not set aside any money to pay for lifetime health care coverage for its workers. His office estimates the city will spend $9 million of Stockton's $165 million general fund to cover health insurance for about 11,000 city retirees. That's compared to $8 million the city will spend on health care for more than 12,000 current workers.

Deis, who inherited the contracts when he took the job in 2010, wants them renegotiated as part of a required mediation process that is taking place as the city tries to avoid bankruptcy. If Stockton files for Chapter 9 protection, its public employees might look to the city of Vallejo for an example of what it could mean for them.

Vallejo provided full health care coverage to its retirees but reduced that to a monthly stipend of $300 after it filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Retired city workers say they were blindsided.

"If I had thought this was even a possibility for the last 26 years, maybe I would have been pre-planning some kind of health care strategy," said former fire chief Vincent Sarullo.

Sarullo, 57, has an annual pension of $135,902 and counts himself among the luckier ones who have been able to absorb the expense. Some public employees, like Sarullo, are not eligible for Medicare or Social Security.

While many government workers can look forward to receiving medical, dental and vision benefits after they retire, such benefits are rapidly disappearing from the private sector.

In 1988, 66 percent of all companies with 200 or more workers offering health benefits to active workers also offered retiree health benefits, according to a 2011 Kaiser Health Foundation survey of employers. That dropped to 26 percent by 2011.

The opposite is true for California governments. According to the survey by the post-employment benefits commission, 86 percent of cities, 91 percent of counties and 89 percent of school districts offer retiree health benefits.

Many government workers can collect their full pensions before age 65, the eligible age for Medicare. Some governments provide retirees health care coverage as a bridge to Medicare. Once the employee is eligible, the retiree benefit becomes secondary to help them fill any Medicare coverage gaps.

A few local governments have begun to make changes. Thousand Oaks was the first city to contract with the state pension system to prefund retiree health care and has capped monthly benefits at $435.

Until a few years ago, employees could work for San Francisco for five years, leave and start claiming full retiree health care benefits once they turned 55. Under Proposition B in 2009, voters changed the rule so new workers have to contribute to a trust fund and must work 20 years to qualify for full benefits.

The city still faces a $4.4 billion long-term liability.

Most state workers have to work 20 years to qualify for full retiree health benefits, but tens of thousands of employees of the California State University system, the courts and Legislature have to work only five years to qualify.

As part of his retirement-reform package, Gov. Jerry Brown wants all new state and local government employees to work 25 years before qualifying for full retiree health care coverage.

"We didn't get into the mess overnight and we're not going to get out of it overnight," Brown said. "I'm doing my best to push it."

By the Associated Press

Jerry Brown says state budget deficit will probably top $10 billion

Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that the state budget deficit could increase by $1 billion or more above the $9.2 billion his administration estimated in January.

Brown said that because of court challenges, weaker-than-expected tax receipts and other factors, the state’s deficit would probably grow when he releases revised budget numbers next month.

"Whether it's $1 billion or a couple billion, we'll let you know in a couple weeks,” Brown said after speaking to the California Medical Assn. in Sacramento.

The doctors’ group has donated more than $250,000 to Brown’s initiative for the fall ballot, which would temporarily raise taxes on sales and incomes of more than $250,000. Brown said his initiative was constructed to have the greatest chance for voter approval, even though polls show Californians are divided on the measure.

The governor said the initiative reflected "my best thinking" and noted that he’s been a student of state politics ever since his father worked for a gubernatorial campaign in the 1940s.

“I thought I knew a lot when I ran for governor, I thought I knew a lot when I ran for president," he said. "I thought I knew a little more when I ran for mayor of Oakland, I thought I knew a little more when I ran for attorney general, and now, here as governor again.”