Opponents of a "split roll" ballot measure to revise the landmark Prop. 13 property tax measure are citing a new study, "Taxing Commercial and Industrial Property at Full Market Value: An Economic Impact Assessment," that suggests the proposed changes could have dire effects on the CA economy. The study, to be released Monday by the nonprofit California Tax Foundation, was completed before the Covid-19 crisis by Berkeley Research Group LLC, a global consulting firm that includes former Legislative Analyst William Hamm and former California Department of Finance Director Tom Campbell.

Among the predictions: California will lose "as many as 120,000 private sector jobs" from firms going out of business or moving out of California. It also suggests the measure would have a "disproportionate impact" on women-and minority-owned firms; and while "strengthening the incentive for 'economic zoning,' it may exacerbate California's housing shortage and affordability problems," the study found.

Budget advisors to Gov. Gavin Newsom told California lawmakers on Friday that the state's initial efforts to combat the coronavirus will total at least $7 billion, with additional costs expected before year's end.

The estimate, contained in a letter to the Legislature's joint budget committee, is the first comprehensive look at the fiscal impact of responding to the pandemic.

A new federal count of initial unemployment claims shows 925,450 Californians seeking benefits in the week ended April 4. That’s down by 132,875 in seven days — but only because the previous week’s tally was revised upward by 179,598 to a record 1.06 million.

Various “stay at home” orders have decimated the economy, swamping state jobless benefit administrators with an unprecedented wave of claims. In the past three weeks, 2.17 million filings were made vs. a total of 2.11 million in the previous 52 weeks.

Unemployed California workers who qualify for jobless benefits will get an extra $600 per week starting Sunday. The money will be added to the regular state benefit, which can be as high as $450 per week. The additional benefit will be available through the end of July, and will be automatically added to the state amount.

The extra funding, announced Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, is part of the federal government’s $2.2 trillion economic aid plan, designed to ease the economic pain caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

One of California’s most hard-fought political battles in recent memory ended four years ago this week, when then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed the law gradually increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. It was a huge victory for organized labor and advocates of low-income families, fought by business groups and made possible by two key provisions.

The law imposed a six-year period of gradual wage hikes. Large employers will hit the $15 mark on Jan. 1, 2022; small businesses have until 2023. But it also includes two ways to pause the annual pay increases, an escape clause on which Brown insisted.

The law gives Newsom two ways to delay California’s minimum hourly wage rising to $14 in January for most businesses and $13 for those with 25 or fewer employees. The governor’s finance director can determine that unemployment has risen and sales and tax receipts have fallen. Or she can estimate that the state budget is projected to run a deficit either in the current fiscal year or in the near future. That determination will be made in July.

Los Angeles County is launching a $500,000 fund to provide grants of up to $10,000 each to local businesses in need, officials announced Monday.

Business owners should act fast, as applications will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis and closed once 150 applications are received.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the Board of Supervisors and the Department of Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services joined together to create the fund.

“The coronavirus pandemic has impacted residents and businesses throughout Los Angeles County,” Barger said. “It is vitally important that we pursue every resource available to support local business and help maintain good job opportunities throughout the region.”

A growing number of California cities and towns are strengthening their building codes to require all-electric buildings, green roofs, solar power, and other measures to reduce carbon emissions.
The California Energy Commission on Wednesday unanimously approved seven new local ordinances from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley that go beyond 2019 energy efficiency building codes.

Cupertino, home of Apple Inc., will require future buildings be all-electric, with some exemptions, including for improvements or spaces occupied by laboratories. Commercial kitchens, such as in restaurants, and other buildings that can’t comply could also seek exemptions.

Lyle Schlyer grinned as a river of frothing manure oozed down a concrete channel, the murky greenish fluid soon disappearing into a storm drain-like hole.

It was a sunny March afternoon, a few days before the novel coronavirus began shutting down much of California, and the smell of cow dung was doing nothing to dampen Schlyer’s enthusiasm. He stood atop a towering contraption that separated the manure into solid and liquid parts. A conveyor belt deposited the brown solids at the top of a stinking mound. The fluids filtered through narrow slits in a metal screen before continuing down the concrete channel.

The liquids would eventually reach a double-lined holding pond, larger than a football field and covered by a thick black tarp. A stew of gases — mostly methane and carbon dioxide — bubbled up under the tarp, creating enough pressure that you can walk across the undulating surface with sinking steps, like an open-air bounce house or a bizarre sand dune.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. forwarded to some customers an email from the California Public Utilities Commission saying their April bill will include a credit that “may help offset energy costs from higher usage as Californians have stayed at home during the recent month in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.”
In reality, PG&E customers were entitled to this California Climate Credit before the coronavirus came along. It’s just good timing that the credit, which always comes in April, will arrive at a time when residential electricity usage is spiking and many people have lost income.

“It makes it sound like they’re giving us a gift,” said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman for The Utility Reform Network, a consumer group. “This is not something PG&E is doing out of the goodness of its heart.”

The credit comes from a state program that requires power plants, natural gas distributors and other large greenhouse gas emitters to buy carbon pollution permits, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. The state distributes the money to consumers through their utility bills. Normally, electricity customers get a credit in April and October; natural gas customers get just one payment, in April.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced the launch of an online resource website that he said will help people whose income has been affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The website, OnwardCA.org, will help employees access emergency resources, training for a new career and connections to employers seeking people with their current skill set.

Oakland's Kapor Center and Fresno's Bitwise Industries are running Onward CA in collaboration with the state, Mastercard, the University of  California, California State University, California Community Colleges and  more than 100 technology companies, including LinkedIn and Salesforce. "(Onward CA is) about getting us back up on our feet," Newsom said during his daily news conference on the coronavirus crisis. "Not just small businesses, now people that have been laid off that need a job."

The gridlocked coronavirus economy could upend housing from coast to coast, bursting national apartment rents that have risen by 150 percent over the last decade, experts say.

Yet the situation will likely do little to alleviate the housing crisis, because the more than 16 million Americans who filed for unemployment insurance in the last three weeks will still need roofs over their heads, say economists and affordable housing advocates.

More than half of the 600 concerned landlords on a conference call Wednesday with the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles said they have tenants who haven't fully paid their April rent, according to Executive Director Daniel Yukelson.

Everyone has three extra months to pay federal income taxes because of the financial pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But what about the real estate taxes on your home? Any flexibility on paying those?

Maybe. It depends on where you live, since property tax payments are governed by a patchwork of state and local rules.

Extra time to pay could help people struggling with furloughs or layoffs. The average property tax bill on a single-family home in 2019 was about $3,600, but average bills are three to five times higher in some areas of the country, including parts of New York, New Jersey and California, according to Attom Data Solutions, which tracks property trends.

It’s generally harder for local governments to postpone tax payments because they rely on the money — usually paid in lump sums once or twice a year — to finance essential services. And while the federal government has vast financing power, counties, cities and towns have limited reserves of cash and credit to fill budget gaps.

The April 10 tax deadline for property tax is fast approaching, and so far there's been no indication from the state legislature that the deadline will be extended.

The coronavirus pandemic and all the furloughs and layoffs have made it difficult for many to pay their property tax. With the exception of two counties, the deadline is this Friday. Here's what you can expect to happen if you're unable to pay on time.

The deadlines for filing and paying both California state taxes and federal taxes has been moved to July 15.

That's only frustrated some property owners, wondering why they haven't gotten the same courtesy.

There's growing concern that many San Diego County residents may not be able to pay their property tax bill by Friday's deadline.

Now, two San Diego County supervisors are pitching a plan they hope could give some relief.

"My office has been flooded with calls from businesses and residents," said San Diego County Supervisor Kristin Gaspar. "People very concerned."

This week Gaspar and fellow supervisor Jim Desmond sent Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister a proposal for property tax relief.

According to the letter, "The San Diego County Chapter of the California Restaurant Association has proposed the ‘COVID-19 Emergency 12 Month Escape Tax Bill Payment Plan Agreement’ which requires at least a 20% payment on or before April 10."

Gaspar said the plan would set up a four-year repayment process. People would need to put 20 percent down on what's owed by Friday, plus a $26 setup fee. People could pay it off early and put more money down at the start.

With so many people in the Bay Area out of work and unsure how to pay next month’s rent, tenant groups are suggesting a singular solution: that renters refuse to pay their landlords and instead opt for a rent strike.

“Systems have come to a halt, industries have crashed, and millions of people have lost their jobs,” notes Bay Area Rent Strike, a grassroots effort that hopes to organize tenants into a region-wide nonpayment movement.

“Without any reliable source of income, without work, sick days, and access to the most basic needs like food and safe shelter, many of us will not survive,” notes the would-be strike organization.

While no one at Bay Area Rent Strike responded to requests for comment, plenty of other people in SF have the word “strike” on their lips, and with temporary moratoriums on evictions in place in many cities, widespread rent strikes could become a reality.

Even before the coronavirus infected the economy and flattened many voters’ wallets, Californians were in a sour mood. In the March 3 primary, 61% of all local bond and tax measures failed.

Combine that fact with the current virus-induced economic coma, and it would seem to doom any November ballot proposition that seeks to raise taxes — or squeeze money out of anybody.

But wait a minute! There’s another way to look at the results of those local bond and tax measures. In truth, two-thirds of the proposals were supported by a majority of voters. Only one-third didn’t receive at least 50% of the vote.

Most of the measures that failed did so because they fell victim to California’s supermajority vote requirement for many local revenue measures: 55% for school bonds, 66.7% for most taxes.

These supermajority vote obstacles don’t apply to statewide tax and bond measures — or anything else on a state ballot. A simple majority is all that’s needed.

So, looking ahead to November, it’s possible that an ambitious, labor-backed proposal to alter sacrosanct, property-tax-cutting Proposition 13 by raising levies on business property isn’t as doomed as it might seem based on the local election results.

But I don’t think so. That property tax hike always had a tall hill to climb. And it’s even steeper now.

Nearly one in three renters in the U.S. failed to pay their April rent at the beginning of the month, a landlord industry group warned Wednesday.

That’s a big increase in missed payments, compared with even one month before. In March, 81% of households paid the rent within the first days of the month. By April, on-time payments dropped to 69% of households.

It’s not really surprising that so many tenants couldn’t make the rent this month, considering that 16.6 million people — roughly one in 10 workers — have filed for unemployment in the last three weeks.

But it’s still shocking to see how quickly so many renters sank into financial distress. It’s another reminder that too many people live paycheck to paycheck, and teeter on the edge of losing their home even in normal times.