This month's legislative activity is dominated by several important deadlines in the Capitol. The first deadline, May 19th, marks the final day for policy committees to hear and vote on bills introduced in that same house. During the month of May, we see a significant uptick in legislative activity as legislators prepare their bills for consideration by the appropriate committees. The California Downtown Association is engaged in two key bills so far this year. Bills supported by CDA: 

   

• SB 2 (Atkins, D-San Diego) which would enact the "Building Homes and Jobs Act" and impose a fee of $75, not to exceed $225 per transaction, at the time of recording of specified real estate documents in order to generate approximately $200-$300m annually to fund affordable housing projects.  Funds would be deposited in the Housing & Community Development's Building Homes and Jobs Trust Fund to support eligible affordable housing projects. The bill was approved by the Senate Committee on Transportation & Housing as well as the Committee on Governance & Finance. The bill is in the Appropriations Committee now and we expect another vote on the bill before the end of May. 

 

• AB 1326 (Cooper, D-Elk Grove & Cervantes, D-Corona) would address the increasing recurrence of theft by changing the threshold for a felony from $950 for the value of the individual occurrences of a crime -- to the aggregate amount of the crime value in a 1-year period totaling $950. The bill was not heard in the policy committee by the deadline due to a lack of support from the Assembly Committee on Public Safety. Since the legislative deadline has passed, the bill will be eligible to be heard again in 2018. 

 

2016-17 State Budget May Revise

Another key period in May is the release of the "May Revise" which is when the Governor submits a financial update based on the April tax revenues and fine-tunes his January budget proposal for the 2017-18 fiscal year. It includes funding for the rising state minimum wage, which is scheduled to increase to $11 per hour in 2018 and to $15 per hour overtime. The "May Revise" also expands healthcare coverage to undocumented children and the millions of Californians covered under the federal Affordable Care Act.

 

Overall, the $180 billion budget proposal closely mirrors the plan submitted to the Legislature in January, maintaining a cautious approach amid uncertainty about the direction of the economy and possible federal actions that could hurt the state's bottom line. The revised plan follows disappointing revenue numbers for April, the state's biggest tax filing month, but reflects a small uptick in projected revenue from the January package.

 

With efforts in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, change tax law, and take other actions that could hit the state hard, t he Governor told reporters the economy's direction is unclear.  Brown said, warning about the economy: "Make no doubt about it, cuts are coming in the next few years, and they'll be big."

Jason Bryant