California Budget

Cal Fire firefighters tend to earn less money than their counterparts in city fire departments. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law meant to narrow the gap.

CalPERS Chief Executive Marcie Frost earned $387,000 in 2017. She'll take home at least $1.7 million this year after being awarded a record bonus.

While the state withheld $3.9 billion from schools, it spent $1.3 billion on pork projects and $600,000 on train consultants' questionable luxury travel bills, reports say.

California’s High-Speed Rail Authority paid nearly $600,000 in unallowable travel reimbursements to outside consultants while keeping a poor record to justify them, a state investigation found.

The California Legislature's secretive earmark process allows lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom to dole out money for projects with little public scrutiny or notice, raising transparency and equity concerns even among some lawmakers.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new carbon market rules threatened climate funding for water, air and transit projects. A last-minute compromise between him and lawmakers provides some funding to narrow that gap.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new corporate tax credit cap, signed into law this summer, threatened to diminish Hollywood’s tax breaks. State leaders want to fix that by exempting independent film productions from that cap.

California police and firefighters will be able to retire earlier and earn more generous pensions under a bill lawmakers sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom. It’s potentially expensive and government agencies are urging him to veto it.

The process has become opaque, and the budget itself is a hodgepodge of phantom revenues, accounting gimmicks and off-the-books loans.

The governor will appoint new state education leadership. But three bills to hold the state more accountable just died in the state senate.