California Income Taxes Up; Sales, Corporate Taxes Down
The State Controller's Office shows last month's revenues came in two percent below projections. For the first three months of the fiscal year, they're just one percent short. Personal income taxes are up slightly, sales tax revenues are down a bit and corporate tax proceeds are down a lot - a full 10 percent this quarter.
On a brighter note, September revenues came in stronger this year than the same month last year - suggesting that there's been some economic growth.
Controller John Chiang says this month's report shows the state's cash position is stable, since first quarter revenues were so close to budget projections. But Chiang's report also shows the state spent a billion dollars more than expected during the fiscal year's first three months. That's off by about four percent.
PPIC Report Finds Disconnect Among California
Voters
Californians support the state's initiative process and want more decisions to be made at the local level. But a new Public Policy Institute of California report says at the same time, many of those Californians don't vote.
The PPIC's Mark Baldassare says California voters are more
likely to trust their local government.
Baldassare: "They don't have
much confidence in what's going on at the state and federal
level. They want to see things move to the local level.
They want to have more power themselves to make decisions.
And we're saying that if we want to have that kind of democracy,
we're going to have a lot of work to do for that to be
effective."
… and not just in getting more people to vote.
Baldassare and some other panelists at a PPIC forum in Sacramento
Wednesday pointed out that most of the major decisions in
California are made at the state level, not the local level.
