› Home › Civics ›

Budget

State funding ends for California libraries

Holly McDede, KALW News — Feb 6 2012 - 7:15pm

The bad news is that state funding for California libraries has been completely eliminated. There’s not really any good news about that, except that it was expected. This past July, state library funding was sliced in half, and there was a trigger amendment attached to the budget that would eliminate state funding for public libraries at midyear if the state's revenue projections were not met. Needless to say, they weren’t.

End of redevelopment agencies traps billions in local government loans

Kendall Taggart, California Watch — Feb 2 2012 - 9:17pm

More than 400 redevelopment agencies have been officially shuttered, leaving a trail of uncertainty – and a potentially staggering debt load. Across the state, cities and counties have loaned more than $4 billion to their redevelopment agencies over the past few decades, but according to the law governing how agencies will be dissolved, they may not be able to recover that money.

Muni operators deserve payout from settlement, says Mayor Lee

Jerold Chinn, SF Public Press — Dec 14 2011 - 5:04pm

San Francisco transit workers got an unexpected holiday bonus, of sorts, after winning back a contested $8 million in health care payouts that the city initially refused to give because it was trying to cut its 2011 budget. Mayor Ed Lee said Tuesday that he agreed with the decision by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to relinquish the funds to the Transport Workers Union 250-A.

After anti-trafficking team shifted focus to prostitution arrests, police retool investigations

Jason Winshell, SF Public Press — Nov 30 2011 - 12:25pm

Special victims unit to take a new victim-centered approach to human rights violations 

The little-noticed use of San Francisco’s human trafficking task force to arrest street prostitutes over the summer underscores a sharp nationwide debate on how local law enforcement can help rescue victims of economic and sexual slavery. Until October, the city’s anti-trafficking team operated out of the San Francisco Police Department’s vice crimes unit. With the help of a federal-state grant, the team racked up more than 15 investigations of suspected traffickers. But in the spring it altered its tactics, making large-scale arrests of dozens of prostitutes in the Polk Gulch neighborhood, in response to complaints from neighbors.

Some employers drop private health plans for San Francisco’s subsidized public option

Barbara Grady, SF Public Press — Nov 16 2011 - 9:08am

Unintended consequences of city’s effort at universal health care

A San Francisco requirement that businesses pay for their employees’ health needs has led to more workers having some form of health care. But after businesses initially stepped up to buy private health insurance for more of their workers, there has been a steady retreat. Since 2008, a growing percentage of employers have ditched private insurance for a cheaper way of meeting the law’s requirements: city-engineered reimbursement accounts, which cost companies half or less what they previously paid for traditional insurance.

San Francisco’s universal health plan reaches tens of thousands, but rests on unstable funding

Barbara Grady, SF Public Press — Nov 16 2011 - 6:04am

Coordination and prevention improve care, but as businesses resist, some costs are borne by one-time grants and struggling clinics

Four years ago, San Francisco launched a grand experiment, becoming the first city in the nation to offer comprehensive health care to its growing ranks of uninsured. Stitching together two-dozen neighborhood health clinics and an array of hospitals, the city bet that two reforms — emphasis on primary care and a common electronic enrollment system — could improve outcomes and buffer the city against soaring health care costs. By many measures, San Francisco’s effort to provide universal health care has been a huge success. The initiative, Healthy San Francisco, has over time treated more than 100,000 city residents. But the city’s grand plan has not solved the central problem dogging health care across the country: figuring out who pays for it.

Effort to recall Oakland mayor faces uphill battle

Jennifer Inez Ward, Oakland Local — Nov 9 2011 - 11:36am

Mayor Jean Quan is facing the toughest fight in her tenure as CEO of Oakland – a recall effort. But whether the recall movement will gain traction and usher Quan out of office is far from clear. Although the recall effort has received extensive media coverage, and there were plenty of folks marching with "Recall Quan" signs at the city's hugely popular general strike Nov. 2,  the quest to replace the mayor will be a long process that could carry on well into mid-2012.

Voters' guide to S.F. mayoral candidates

Josh Wilson, Newsdesk.org — Nov 7 2011 - 1:02pm

The 2011 Nonpartisan Voter Guide  is a succinct, printable listing of S.F. mayoral candidate positions and quotes on more than two-dozen key policy issues and ballot initiatives, including pensions, taxes, transportation and homelessness. The research and survey were conducted by University of California’s Hastings College of the Law and the San Francisco Public Press. The voter guide was produced by Newsdesk.org.

Occupy Oakland protesters push for general strike

Alima Catellacci and Alejandra Cuéllar, SF Public Press — Oct 27 2011 - 1:30pm
The day after a tumultuous confrontation between police and the protesters of the Occupy Oakland movement, more than 2,000 people gathered Wednesday at the civic center to vent their outrage at the heavy-handed eviction tactics, which included launching teargas into the crowd. Thousands of protesters convened in the early evening in an amphitheater in what they were calling Oscar Grant Plaza — officially Frank Ogawa plaza at City Hall, renamed after the victim of a police shooting on BART last year — to discuss the events of the previous 48 hours.

Saving the UC — but at what cost?

Holly Kernan, KALW Crosscurrents — Oct 17 2011 - 11:46am

In the University of California system, officials are considering raising fees as much as 16 percent a year through 2015. To learn more about what this means for students, and for public education in California, KALW’s Holly Kernan spoke with UC’s student liaison to the Regents, Jonathan Stein. Stein is a graduate student in public policy and law at UC Berkeley, and he’s one of two students represented in the University’s decision-making body.

Syndicate content