from Kevin Pedrotti, Golden State Builders Exchanges Legislative Advocate
Overview
A no drama budget? The Governor released his proposed budget on January 10 and according to his Department of Finance there is no budget deficit in 2013-14 with projections of a surplus through 2016-17. The good news on the budget is partially due to the passage of Proposition 30 which temporarily raised income taxes on high wage earners and the state sales tax. The big question will be can the Governor control the legislature from not increasing program spending now that the budget appears to be recovering.
The Governor has called a narrowly focused special session of the legislature to deal with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and Health Benefit Exchange. California is charging ahead to have the Exchange fully implemented to meet the 2014 date of the ACA. This is a huge undertaking. Start to prepare your members for health insurance premium rate shock in 2014. I will have more on this later in the year.
February 22 is the bill introduction deadline. I believe less than 400 bills have been introduced so far. Included with this update is a list of bills we are tracking so far. We know there will be many more; CEQA reform, CSLB sponsored bills, etc.
Let me know if you have any questions or what might be of interest to you. This should prove to be an interesting year with the extra large class of freshman members.
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