CA state budget has $14.3 billion surplus above expectations (Montclair: unemployment, income)

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

Extra billions?

How about returning that DMV registration $$,$$$,$$$,$$$ to it's rightful owners?

Since the State is NOT going to do anything that's actually beneficial with it...


$209 for an old motorcycle is ridiculous.

OK, now this actually sounds like a fair beef. Maybe certain fees could be dialed back.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by tijlover

How about a couple of desalination plants along the coast, somewhere where the Nimby's aren't going to scream and shout, and where would that be? Camp Pendleton!

Sounds pretty good. I think it's also good to go for leaks and evaporative losses. I've also wondered about how direct electrolysis of sea water could work to generate hydrogen and oxygen for fuel cell usage especially during times when power generated from solar panels overtake demand and then have the fuel cell generate electricity and water for use during times when solar panels don't meet demand.


I would also like to see the state give out funding to pilot solar panels over irrigation canals which helps with evaporative losses while generating electricity more efficiently than solar panels that aren't over irrigation canals.

[TheseGoTo11]

Don't confuse a surplus heavily dependent on capital gains with fiscal health. If things were so great, we wouldn't have the same bond rating as West Virginia.

The state uses cash accounting with its surpluses/deficits, if a publicly held corporation did that it would be fraud. The state's mediocre bond rating reflects massive pension liabilities, and without a growing population the pension debt per citizen is likely to keep rising above the rate of inflation.

[BB_210]

Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11

Don't confuse a surplus heavily dependent on capital gains with fiscal health. If things were so great, we wouldn't have the same bond rating as West Virginia.

The state uses cash accounting with its surpluses/deficits, if a publicly held corporation did that it would be fraud. The state's mediocre bond rating reflects massive pension liabilities, and without a growing population the pension debt per citizen is likely to keep rising above the rate of inflation.

Someone will come and throw mental gymnastics at you for thrashing california. Just wait a bit.

[tifoso]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

I didn't say auditing conflicts should at all with an agency's function--I'm saying that stating something like:
^to me, doesn't actually work out to be very prudent behavior because of the time sensitive annual recurrence of the issue, the very near track record we have from such with years of tallying up loss, and the run-up it takes to actually procure large, expensive pieces of specialized equipment and the training of a skilled workforce. I don't understand what you would be pushing back against as it doesn't seem to be along where we disagree.


You do not have to bury every single mile of overhead lines, because it's not like the associated risk of every single mile of powerline is the same which is what makes broad calculations like that pretty confusing to me. The numbers need a bit more context than that, and sometimes it makes sense to dig a little deeper. For example, $11 billion in liabilities for PG&E in a year isn't the actual true cost of the wildfires because there are also consider other costs like lost productivity, healthcare costs, and workforce and jobs moving out of or convinced to not come into the state--models that encompass that can have calculated losses well over the purported cost of burying lines in a single year (and again, there is just about no need to underground every single mile). It also doesn't hurt to consider funding pilots or research to more cheaply underground lines and to work on alternatives such as more local storage and generation.

Re CalFire’s budget. Not sure what you’re driving at. So here’s a question. Are you saying that because of the unique nature of CalFire’s mission that they should have immediate access to funds beyond that which the legislative body has appropriated? If so, we can discuss that. If not, I’d appreciate a clarification as to what you think is the best move going forward.

Re burying power lines. I apologize, I should have clarified that I did not advocate burying all overhead lines. But do you have any thoughts as to what percentage should be buried? That sounds facetious, granted. But keep in mind that out of California’s roughly 265,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines, two-thirds are overhead (approximately 177,000 miles). For argument’s sake let’s assume we need to bury one of every eight miles of those. At the current rate of 100 miles/year, it would take more than 200 years to bury just that fraction. Even if we managed to cobble together the resources to raise the rate to 1,000 miles/year, it would still take more than two decades. I’m not saying it’s not cost-effective, not in the least. But burying power lines and developing micro generating facilities locally are long-term solutions, not short-term.

[nobodysbusiness]

How about fixing roads, bridges, adding efficient state-of-the-art transportation, etc.?

I know. So novel.

[BB_210]

Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness

How about fixing roads, bridges, adding efficient state-of-the-art transportation, etc.?

I know. So novel.

Remember that time CA burned through billions trying to build a train track.

[TheseGoTo11]

Originally Posted by gkaplan2323

Hopefully, this means there is will be investment in the infrastructure.

It needs to go to a rainy day fund, especially after Gavin pulled $8 billion out of reserves last year to balance the budget.

Additionally, Bond ratings tend to correlate to population growth, which we no longer have, and we could easily have a deficit next year if the stock market stagnates and capital gains taxes recede.

Capital gains tax revenue is projected to be $19 billion this year, a record, and Newsom's current projections are for deficits to return in two years.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by tifoso

Re CalFire’s budget. Not sure what you’re driving at. So here’s a question. Are you saying that because of the unique nature of CalFire’s mission that they should have immediate access to funds beyond that which the legislative body has appropriated? If so, we can discuss that. If not, I’d appreciate a clarification as to what you think is the best move going forward.

Re burying power lines. I apologize, I should have clarified that I did not advocate burying all overhead lines. But do you have any thoughts as to what percentage should be buried? That sounds facetious, granted. But keep in mind that out of California’s roughly 265,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines, two-thirds are overhead (approximately 177,000 miles). For argument’s sake let’s assume we need to bury one of every eight miles of those. At the current rate of 100 miles/year, it would take more than 200 years to bury just that fraction. Even if we managed to cobble together the resources to raise the rate to 1,000 miles/year, it would still take more than two decades. I’m not saying it’s not cost-effective, not in the least. But burying power lines and developing micro generating facilities locally are long-term solutions, not short-term.

I'm saying I disagree with your assessment that it's prudent for CalFire to go through what it's currently allocated before allocating anymore because there is a very real time constraint and costs associated with waiting. Now if CalFire doesn't require more funding, then so be it, but that's different from a blanket statement of waiting for what's currently allocated to be spent and assessing it. The best move going forward is to assess if there is further funding requested for CalFire and the rationale behind that to assess if it makes sense to put some of the budget surplus into it *even if* CalFire hasn't finished with its current program as what was allocated at the time was not allocated with this budget surplus so there is some possibility parts were pared down out of what was necessity then.


We're probably looking at the same sources since those are the same numbers I see. The current rate being 100 miles/year certainly isn't an argument for *not* allocating more funding since part of that pace is due to the amount budgeted for this and the discussion is about what to do with the budget surplus, and it appears that the cost of fires and service interruptions has been quite high. And yea, infrastructure is generally long term investments though you have to realize that it's not like you don't get anything in the midst of that process since obviously it's not simultaneously working on all lines in parallel at once--you'd be lowering the risk segment per segment ideally with some kind of triage roughly in line with what lines have the best cost-benefit ratio to work on such get worked on first such that the first 1,000 miles of burial would hopefully lower the fire or service interruption risk more than the last 1,000 mile of burial. You can commit funds up front to have a greater chance of this actually happening, so it would appear that committing funds to expand or start the process and have at least some of these improvements underway would be a reasonable way to allocate budget surpluses since there is the longer term cost-benefit ratio for the state and the people of the state given that the assessed costs of the fires over the last few years both direct and indirectly has been pretty fantastic.

Use some of the budget surplus to manage risk so that there are greater revenues and/or lower costs/damage later on. That's a reasonable virtuous cycle.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

Extra billions?

How about returning that DMV registration $$,$$$,$$$,$$$ to it's rightful owners?

Since the State is NOT going to do anything that's actually beneficial with it...


$209 for an old motorcycle is ridiculous.

How about a 2001 old pickup that has 170 K total miles that still costs me over 500 a year to register. Plus I've only put 3K a year since I bought it.