Posted May 18, 2009
Bring on the autopsy. If the polling is any indication, California voters will defeat the five budget balancing measures, Propositions 1A through 1E, today. Not only do both the Field and PPIC polls show the measures losing, but opinion seems to be hardening against them. According PPIC, those voters following the measures closest are the most vigorously opposed. Fifty two percent of likely voters oppose Proposition 1A, the spending cap/tax measure. But among those following the measure most closely, 65 percent are opposed and only 29 percent are in favor.
If the measures go down, two factors will be at play. The voters do not seem to believe the legislature is capable of reforming itself, thus they are unimpressed with the “rainy day” spending cap Governor Schwarzenegger and proponents have pushed so hard for.
And they are opposed to the additional burden of higher sales taxes, a higher car tax and increased income taxes, all of which fall on the state’s voters. As part of the budget compromise, the legislature declined to impose any industry specific taxes (no doubt to not arouse industry opposition) and instead raised broad based taxes. But the voters have already turned down higher taxes on rich people, oil companies and tobacco companies - so why did the legislature think voters would support higher taxes on themselves.
So who are the winners and losers if the measures fail? That’s easy. Everyone is a loser. Republicans said they were for a spending cap, but they are not supporting Proposition 1A, that has a spending cap. GOP anti-tax activists say it won’t hold down spending, but how do they know if it is not tried.
Legislative Republicans ousted their leadership over the tax increases and are recalling members who voted for the tax package. But in the process, they alienated themselves from business, which wants the ballot measures, and the governor, who is the only one who can raise any money for the state GOP (not that he cares about that anymore.) Will the new GOP legislative leaders be players in what happens next? Probably not.
Democrats are losers in the short run; they must still govern and make the draconian cuts that will be necessary if the measures fail. But they can be winners in the long run. The tax increases will now expire in 2011, but if Democrats under new party boss John Burton put their minds to it they can win two thirds control in both houses, and in 2011 they can make the tax cuts permanent, and do so without worrying about a spending cap. That’s having your cake and eating it too.
Given plummeting GOP registration throughout the state, all the Democrats need to do is spend $5 to $10 million in a half dozen Assembly and Senate seats in 2010 - dollars they can easily raise — and they will take full control of both houses of the legislature. In 1975, when Jerry Brown first became governor, Democrats had effective two thirds margins in both houses; funny if Jerry Brown becomes governor in 2010 and this is all repeated 36 years later.
Finally, Governor Schwarzenegger is certainly a loser too, but he also has a window of opportunity. His numbers have plummeted largely because the public no longer believes him. He said he would not raise taxes and he did so. There is no chance of passing another tax bill, but liberal Democrats will concoct 41-vote fee bills that do the same thing. They passed one in January to impose an oil severance tax and a gas tax fee that Schwarzenegger vetoed.
Once the people have spoken, Schwarzenegger should say no to any new taxes, especially those disguised as fees. If the voters on May 19 vote for draconian budget cuts, the governor should see that they get them.
Posted
The Governor issues two budget proposals today, one suggesting how he plans to fill the budget hole if the special election ballot measures pass, the other showing how he’ll fill the bigger hole if they fail.
Either way, whether the budget is 15 billion dollars out-of-whack or 21 billion, cuts will happen.
Arguing that many of the suggested cuts are scare tactics, some have referred to similar tactics employed in the past, especially during the famous California tax revolt of 1978. Few of the threatened cuts at that time came to pass. One big difference from then to now is that in 1978 the state was sitting on a 40% state budget surplus. Now there is a about a 40% state budget deficit.
So there will be cuts. The focus now is how they will be employed. Many cuts should be made and have been needed for a long time. Agency consolidation, unnecessary commissions and sale of excess property have been argued over for years and will be the first on the agenda. But that will not be enough, and cuts will come to local governments and schools and other mainline services.
With the schools, will the initial cuts fall on the teachers, who are always mentioned first, or administrators, who are rarely mentioned at all?
Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gave a hint yesterday where any government will have to look for cuts. At a news conference, he explained that he would call a fiscal emergency for the city allowing him to lay off some city employees and furlough others. State personnel will also feel the sting of reduced revenue.
The fight for more revenue will not go away if the ballot measures are rejected. While taxes will be nearly impossible to pass in the legislature, there will be calls for targeted taxes, and there certainly will be efforts to pass fees with a simple majority vote. However, if the voters reject taxes they will view fees as the same thing and will not be interested.
The one certainty with the ballooning deficit is that cuts are coming.
Posted
With the World Health Organizations raising the pandemic alert level to Phase 5 last week - which means human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region, a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short - preparations for a possible international pandemic take on even more urgency.
The head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan told Britain’s Financial Times on Monday that the apparent decline in mortality rates did not mean the pandemic was coming to an end. It is quite possible that a second wave may strike “with a vengeance.”
“If it’s going to happen it would be the biggest of all outbreaks the world has faced in the 21st century,” the business daily quoted her as saying. “We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn’t we are heading for a big outbreak. I’m not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it and we don’t prepare, I fail. I’d rather over-prepare than not prepare.” She added the end of the flu season in the northern hemisphere meant any initial outbreak could be fairly mild, but a second wave reemerging in the fall could be more lethal.
Much of the preparedness from a local government perspective involves adequate steps to contain the contagion as it emerges. But what about prisons - places where people are locked up together in a closed environment?
With more than 9 million people incarcerated across the globe and 2.25 million in U.S. jails and prisons alone, it is vital that correctional officials and health professionals be prepared for a worst-case scenario that involves pandemic influenza reaching inmates and staff.
With collaborative planning and training, prison and public health officials can help control influenza outbreaks behind bars, according to an article in the April issue of the Journal of Correctional Health Care.
For a model of prison preparedness, the article cites a two-day conference on prison pandemic preparedness that was held in Georgia in 2007. Administrators, medical doctors, registered nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists were among the participants, as well as state and local public health officials.This conference, suggest the authors, could serve as a model for such training.
The objectives of the conference were to educate participants about pandemic flu issues in prison settings, provide impetus for initial planning in Georgia’s prisons, and elicit ideas about how the prisons could best prepare for and respond to pandemic flu.
Effective training about pandemic influenza requires more than just classroom lectures or checklists, the authors write. The conference employed interactive methods and educational games that proved effective in training participants.
Posted
The Governor and The Legislature are right on the budget challenges. The deficit is growing and despite what the outcome is with the ballot measures, the State will continue to impose more mandates on local government without providing funding. This is a practice that has gone on for decades even though it is a violation of State governance.
The National Alliance for Health Communities has been successful over the years in assisting communities in protecting their financial resources and in most cased improving funds from the State and federal government. The first step is always to protect what you already have.
Key elements in protecting what you have are demonstrated through programs that we have developed that establish the needs for liveable communities and regional assets. The key is always in the documentation or the “facts”.
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
Posted May 7, 2009
On Tuesday May 5, Robert M. Levy was invited to join the League of California Cities and other local government stakeholders in a conference call with the Governor’s Office during which the Governor’s staff discussed options they are considering for the 2009-10 May Revision to address an $8 to $14 billion budget hole. Under consideration is a proposal to borrow an estimated $2 billion from local government under Proposition 1A (2004).
The Governor’s staff was immediately reminded that this plan is completely irresponsible and does nothing to solve the state’s long-term budget issues. It is a short-term maneuver that will have long-lasting consequences. Suspension of Proposition 1A undermines any effort to restore the state to fiscal stability and will devastate counties and the people we serve.
Irrespective of what happens in the May 19 special election, it appears that all options will be on the table as the state grapples with its growing deficit. Tuesday’s call is just the start of the budget debate and what will likely be another long summer at the Capitol.
Other key points about the suspension proposal:
· Counties are struggling with day-to-day operations, while dealing with an unprecedented demand for human services due to the economic downturn. Services will be significantly disrupted under this borrowing plan and many counties simply will not be able to provide the levels of services our constituents depend on. Counties have made drastic cuts to health and human services programs, public safety, and other vital services due to declines in local revenues and funding cuts by the state. Those cuts and disruption of services will only become more severe under this plan.
· The state has a constitutional obligation to repay this “loan” within three years with interest. That deadline will hit at the same time taxes and fees approved under the state budget in February will expire, if the May ballot measures fail - making it even more difficult for the state to meet its obligation to repay local governments.
· Local governments will have difficulty borrowing against the state’s obligated repayment due to the poor condition of the credit markets. In these unprecedented economic times, counties do not have the ability to simply borrow our way out of this problem.
We will keep you apprised of any developments that materialize. In considering this particular series of events, though, one must take into account the timing of these discussions, the May 19 Special Election and the May Revision, expected to be released on May 28.
For more information please contact us at (310)440-8606.
Posted May 4, 2009
Vice President Joe Biden today announced $300 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for state and local governments and transit authorities to expand fleets of clean vehicles and the fueling infrastructure necessary to support them.
Biden acknowledged the commitments state and local governments have made to reducing green house gases and carbon emissions. “From advanced battery cars to hybrid-electric city buses, we’re going put Recovery Act dollars to work deploying cleaner, greener vehicles in cities and towns across the nation that will cut costs, reduce pollution and create the jobs that will drive our economic recovery,” he said.
The Clean Cities program offers $300 million to support at least 30 alternative fuels or advanced vehicles projects and requires a 50 percent participant cost share. Technologies eligible to be funded include a number of different light and heavy-duty vehicles, including hybrid, plug-in electric hybrid, hydraulic hybrid, electric, fuel cell, and compressed natural gas vehicles. In addition, projects can support refueling infrastructure for alternative fuels, including biofuels and natural gas. Other efforts eligible for funds include public awareness campaigns and training programs on alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles and infrastructure.
The Clean Cities program is a government-industry partnership led by the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy that promotes the growth of alternative fuels and showcases the potential of advanced fuels and vehicles. The existing program has helped put more than half a million alternative fuel vehicles on the road and played a role in the construction of thousands of alternative refueling stations.
Applicants to the program must be state governments, local governments, or metropolitan transit authorities, that partner with a designated Clean Cities coalition. Once awarded, these funds will help local and state government agencies make investments in clean transportation vehicles and fuels that they may not have the resources to do otherwise.
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
Posted
The budget that just passed both houses of Congress has given the prospects for health-care reform this year a big boost. With the inclusion of procedural language that would make it impossible for opponents to filibuster, it will now take a simple majority to pass the Senate, rather than 60 votes, simplifying the political arithmetic considerably.
But that is only the beginning. As hard as it will be for lawmakers to navigate the political and philosophical minefields to get to 51 votes for health-care reform, the most difficult challenge of all may be the number on the bottom line. Under the budget rules, any reform scheme will have to pay for itself within six years.
Trying to meet that ambitious goal in such a short time frame may make it hard for lawmakers to make the wisest policy choices. Though advocates say that fixing the health system promises big savings over the long haul, it will take some big, up-front investments - in technology and preventive care, for instance - whose benefits will not begin to take effect for years. And most of the savings will accrue not to the Federal Government - whose direct costs for health care are felt largely through the Medicare and Medicaid programs - but to the economy writ large, where health care now accounts for about 17% of all spending, more than double its percentage in 1970. “Ironically, the things that may wind up being the most important are the things that we will get little or no credit for” under the budget rules, says White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag.
So daunting is the prospect of passing a bill that fits the confines of a pay-as-you-go budget that a coalition of 30 organizations pushing for health-care reform - including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, organized labor, the drug lobby, AARP and organizations representing hospitals, doctors and patients - wrote a letter in March asking lawmakers to suspend the rule with respect to health-care reform. But officials at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue say that would be political suicide at a time of record deficits - and a guarantee that Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats would not support the plan.
So where will lawmakers find the money? President Obama proposed a $634 billion “reserve fund,” paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy, but even if that passes, experts say it won’t be enough to cover even half the cost of comprehensive health-care reform over the next 10 years. Hospitals and doctors are also bracing for what they expect will be efforts to cut the reimbursements they get for treating patients under Medicare and Medicaid.
One of the biggest ways to raise money to pay for health-care reform is also the most politically delicate: taxing employer-provided health benefits. It’s an idea that Obama criticized when his opponent John McCain proposed it during last year’s presidential campaign, but one that his top White House advisers now say should remain on the table. And it is an approach that Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus says he is considering.
It’s easy to see the appeal, if you look at the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that fully counting employer-provided health benefits as taxable income could bring as much as $246 billion a year into federal coffers. But the politics of taxing something that workers now believe they get for free would be treacherous. More likely than a total elimination of the favorable tax treatment is the prospect of putting some kind of limit on that deduction - forcing workers to pay taxes, for instance, if their employer offers a particularly lavish plan. Or lawmakers may come at it another way, curbing the tax deduction that companies can take for offering those benefits.
Such choices get to the real truth behind the cold hard numbers of health-care reform. Every one of them is a political calculation, one that pits one constituency against another. Can lawmakers really balance the books on health-care reform? “You can do it,” says former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, a leading voice in the health-care-reform effort. “It’s just a matter of how much pain you want to endure.”
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
Posted
Two groups targeting California politics for extreme makeovers have made enhancing revenue streams for local government a focal point of the argument for supporting drastic change.
California Forward and the Bay Area Council both think the state has fallen into a rut, dressing the same tired budgeting tricks in tacky clothes and parading it around like a new solution.
They want a transformation starting at the city and county level, but they are selling different paths to slimming down big government-style budgeting.
“We need to move government closer to the people,” said Robert Hertzberg, former Democratic speaker of the state Assembly and now California Forward co-chair, at a Sacramento Press Club lunch while on a multi-media promotional tour.
California Forward (www.caforward.org), a bipartisan group funded largely by foundations, wants to change the way budgeting works in California.
The group started with a legislative study group to improve state spending plans and hopes to convince the legislature to put proposals for tax reform on the 2010 or 2012 ballot.
“We want to restore flexibility for local governments by giving them more control over their budgets,” explained Jim Mayer, California Forward executive director.
How much flexibility?
“They should have authority over raising and lowering taxes and managing programs. The state’s role is to set minimum standards and then let cities and counties - counties in particular - decide how to provide services.”
Allowing councils and boards of supervisors to decide whether to move some law enforcement funds into social services or the other way around based on the city’s individual situation and administrator preferences can be a compelling argument.
The Bay Area Council (www.bayareacouncil.org), another bi-partisan group, funded mainly by business, has called for a Constitutional Convention to overhaul the budget process and wants to put the idea to a statewide vote as early as 2010.
Last year, the group hired Oakland-based Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates to conduct a poll on public attitudes toward the idea.
Of the 800 people interviewed, 82 percent said the state is headed in the wrong direction.
Almost that many (80 percent) were extremely, very seriously or somewhat seriously concerned with how the state collects and distributes funds to local governments and schools.
Of the specific reforms polled for possible inclusion in the ballot initiative, the one that received the most support was the local control question.
Pollsters asked if the respondents would support “permitting local governments to keep locally collected taxes instead of sending them to Sacramento and having them redistributed back to local governments.” A total of 68 percent responded positively.
“More locally-collected funds should stay local,” concluded John Grubb, Bay Area Council senior vice president of external affairs.
How either of these groups will specifically make that happen will have to wait until the big reveal, probably after the May special election results show just how bad the state is in need of a new ‘do.
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
Posted
With the economic crisis deepening and unemployment rising, attention is turning to the nation’s immigrant workers.
President Obama’s recent stimulus package included a provision in which banks receiving bailout money were limited from hiring foreign workers. Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Charles Grassley of Iowa are introducing legislation in Congress that would tighten enforcement in granting H1-B visas for skilled foreign workers.
In the Silicon Valley, this conversation is especially significant.
On one side of the debate, there is the area’s tech industry, which is peopled by large numbers of skilled foreign-born workers in the engineering, research and innovation departments at companies like Google, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.
On the other side are labor groups who claim these H-1B visa holders are displacing U.S. workers.
While the recession has spurred a greater tendency towards protectionism, Silicon Valley business leaders maintain that in order to continue the area’s legacy of innovation and progress, increasingly stringent immigration caps must be relaxed.
In 2001, the cap on H-1B visas reached 195,000. Since 2004, the number has decreased to just 65,000, according to a recent New York Times report.
The Silicon Valley Leadership Group has long advocated for raising the cap on H-1B visas. The group, made up of 290 member companies including Apple, Google and Intel, regularly works with local government to improve the economic health and quality of life in the Valley.
The group is headed to Washington next week to speak to members of Congress and the administration about the immigration issue for highly skilled workers, among other topics. The group is not pushing for a defined number of H-1B visas per year, but believes that the cap should fluctuate based on demand.
“It’s a mistake to think there is just a fixed number of jobs. Someone gets a job; someone else doesn’t get a job. That’s true for only an immediate period of time,” says Phil Yost, a spokesman for the group. “When companies get the best people, they grow, they prosper, and the total number of jobs available expands.”
Top Silicon Valley executives including the chiefs of Sunpower, Serious Materials, Wyse Technology and Brocade will lead the two-day trip, which starts on May 4.
Yost says that while the group does not expect much action on the immigration issue this year, they will continue to advocate for elements they believe should be part of national immigration policy.
The group will also speak to federal legislators about other local projects including funding via the Federal Transportation Reauthorization Bill for the BART extension to Silicon Valley and advocating for federal money to support a housing trust in Santa Clara County.
On immigration, in addition to talking about raising the H-1B visa cap, the group will speak about exempting foreign advanced degree graduates from the cap, and increasing the number of green cards granted.
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
Posted
Yolo County officials and local business owners expect federal stimulus-funded runway upgrades to the Yolo County Airport to not only make things safer for pilots, but also boost the surrounding economy.
The 40-acre rural airport located just outside of Woodland, Calif. was recently approved for $1.35 million from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to resurface the runway that was once used as flight support during World War II in the case of an enemy attack.
The airport is now utilized by several local agriculture operations, parachuting businesses, transportation for entertainers to Cache Creek Casino Resort and rest stops for aviators.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 granted the FAA $1.3 billion for projects and programs nationwide, with $474 million of that going toward runway improvements.
The total Yolo County Airport project, including design, is expected to cost $2 million, with the rest of the funding coming from separate local and federal grants, said Terry Vernon, Yolo County deputy director of General Services.
Vernon said the resurfacing has needed to be done for quite some time and the last airport improvement plan was completed six or seven years ago. Because the airport is an enterprise fund - supporting itself through leasing of hangers and land - it receives no funding from the county. Though a small county staff is used for regular upkeep, funding for upgrades can be difficult to come by outside of grant monies.
“It takes a while to do things, especially when you don’t have anybody specifically assigned to do that type of work,” Vernon said.
A few months ago, after the Reinvestment Act was passed, Vernon said the county discovered the FAA would have the appropriate funding available to secure, and finalized the long-awaited resurfacing project that will both smoothen and deepen the landing pad.
Larger Aircraft
The increased depth of the runway will make it safer and allow for larger aircraft to land by increasing the depth.
“We’re not talking a C-141 or anything, but we’re talking basically the type of aircraft that people would charter or carry six to 12 people in a Lear jet,” Vernon said.
One of the many aviation businesses that lease a hanger at Yolo County Airport is Davis Flight Support - a fuel and maintenance general aviation and corporate jet company. Davis Flight, which has leased hangers and land at the airport for a year-and-a-half, and its sister company Woodland Aviation located about eight miles from the airport, provide aircraft maintenance, discounted fuel, limo services from the airport to entertainment venues such as Cache Creek Casino Resort and resting amenities such as showers and a place to sleep for pilots.
Gary Pelfrey, vice president of Davis Flight Support and Woodland Aviation, says the upgrades will drastically increase his business and surrounding businesses such as hotels, restaurants and rental car companies that will all benefit from more air traffic coming into the area.
“It’s nice to see other business activity coming into Yolo County that’s not agriculture-related, it diversifies the money coming into the county,” Pelfrey said. “The more airplanes we bring in, the county makes property taxes off the ones that are in a hanger here and they also make revenue and taxes off the fuel and services we provide.”
When the runway upgrades are complete (by the end of June or early July), Pelfrey plans to move the maintenance operations of Woodland Aviation to the Yolo County Airport, purchase an additional 20,000 square-foot hanger and expand his employee base (he currently has 36 employees).
“This will let me go ahead and pull the trigger on that,” he said.
Pelfrey said that even though he expects his business to be more successful and efficient because of the resurfacing, he is glad the county was successful in obtaining the federal stimulus money for safety reasons.
“You want to provide a safe environment for your pilots,” he said. “At some point, if you don’t maintain [the runway], then the cost becomes pretty substantial if you let things degrade.”
Federal Spending
John Munn, president of the Yolo County Taxpayers Association, said that while he doesn’t know the details of the project at the airport, he is worried about the amount of money the federal government is handing out.
“Personally, I think it is going to create us huge problems in the future; spending all of this money now,” Munn said.
The Yolo County Taxpayers Association is a local nonprofit, nonpartisan group of local citizens and agricultural, business, industrial and professional organizations that meets once a month to takes positions on county issues that will effect taxpayers. The association is currently coming up with positions on Propositions 1A-1F, which will appear on the ballot in the California Special Election on May 19.
Munn did say that the entire association has reservations about the federal stimulus package.
“Most of the members are concerned about the effects of economic stimulus spending,” he said. “It has the potential of creating future inflation that will be just another problem to solve that will be painful to everybody instead of the people that are more directly effected by the current downturn.”
Terry Vernon said the federal stimulus money has allowed the county to complete a project that could not be funded in any other way, while helping to improve the surrounding business climate and infrastructure.
“If there is funding available from the federal government to cities, counties or state government, we’re interested in that because we want to put something on the street to make an improvement in Yolo County that will stimulate the economy,” Vernon said.
The FAA expects to have more than $550 million obligated by June 17 and the final balance of $1.3 billion supplied by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 obligated by September 30.
Please note, statements and opinions expressed are solely those of their respective authors and may not represent the views of The National Alliance for Healthy Communities or its employees thereof. The National Alliance for Healthy Communities is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information.
