To browse all LAO publications, visit our Publications page.
March 20, 2012 - Presented to Senate Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee and Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee
March 7, 2012 - Presented to Joint Oversight Hearing on Land Use and Community Development, Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee and Assembly Local Government Committee
February 22, 2012 - Presented to: Senate Transportation and Housing Committee and Senate Governance and Finance Committee, Hons. Mark DeSaulnier and Lois Wolk, Chairs
January 27, 2012 - As part of legislation authorizing seven local governments to participate in a pilot program regarding electronic filing of Statements of Economic Interests forms, the Legislature requested our office to evaluate the pilot program. This report presents our findings.
October 24, 2011 - Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Trust Fund Program
August 19, 2011 - As part of the 2011-12 budget plan, the Legislature enacted a major shift—or “realignment”—of state program responsibilities and revenues to local governments. In total, the realignment plan provides $6.3 billion to local governments to fund various criminal justice, mental health, and social services programs in 2011-12, and ongoing funds for these programs annually thereafter. We recommend the Legislature address a few pressing implementation issues before this legislative session ends. We also identify a series of more extensive issues that we recommend the Legislature address in early 2012, such as developing local funding formulas with an eye towards the long term, promoting local accountability, and simplifying the plan’s extensive network of accounts and subaccounts.
June 7, 2011 - This document is a partially updated list of nearly 300 state boards and commissions. This list is based on a search for state boards and commissions that our office completed in 2009. In updating this list, we removed any entities that we know have been abolished since 2009. We post this list with the caveat that Legislative Counsel and the administration have not reviewed it. Without their review, we do not know whether this list includes all state boards and commissions currently in existence. It may be possible, for example, that some boards and commissions have been eliminated or created since 2009 without our knowledge.
February 9, 2011 - Presented to: Assembly Subcommittee No. 3 On Resources and Transportation Hon. Richard Gordon, Chair
January 25, 2011 - The VoteCAL system would serve as the state’s single system for storing and managing the official list of registered voters in California.
January 24, 2011 - The 21st Century Project is an information technology project that would replace existing human resources systems with one statewide integrated human resources management system.
December 16, 2010 - Current law requires the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) to report annually to the Legislature certain information related to real estate fraud cases in counties that participate in the Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Trust Fund Program. The report must also include information on the types of expenditures made by the law enforcement agencies of those counties. Our review found that, by 2009-10, 21 counties had reported data indicating their participation in the program at an annual statewide cost of about $10 million, with significant variation in expenditures from county to county. In this report, we further analyze this data and offer recommendations to clarify a 10 percent cap on administrative costs incurred in the program as well as to modify the current program reporting requirements.
November 9, 2010 - In a previous analysis, we pointed out that the sale-leaseback of state buildings authorized in 2009 legislation was poor fiscal policy and represented one imperfect option among many for balancing the state’s budget. Mainly due to changes in the interpretation of property tax assessments, our forecast of the cost of the sale-leaseback is approximately $800 million greater than our previous analysis. The Legislature may wish to consider whether this increase in costs merits changing course.
October 6, 2010 - Presented to the Conference Committee on the Budget
September 29, 2010 - Presented to Joint Hearing of Senate and Assembly Committees on Revenue and Taxation
September 28, 2010 - Presented to Joint Hearing of Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment, and Constitutional Amendments and Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting