I am pleased to announce SB 1113 (Knight), my sponsored proposal to protect disabled veterans, cleared the Assembly last week with unanimous, bipartisan support, and now awaits action by Governor Jerry Brown.

Under California law, veterans who receive a 100% disability rating from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may be eligible for a property tax exemption on the value of their home up to $124,932 or $187,399 in 2014 and equivalent amounts adjusted for inflation in future years. The exemption starts on the date of disability and disabled veterans may claim a refund for up to four years of back taxes paid.

Unfortunately, due to VA backlogs, some veterans have had to wait more than four years to receive their disability rating certifications. As a result, they’ve missed out on thousands of dollars in property tax refunds to which they were entitled and anticipated receiving.

SB 1113 would increase the availability of refunds on taxes previously paid from four years to eight years, allowing veterans to receive the full benefit of their exemption,… Read More

Union lobbyists try to be discreet when they influence the California State Legislature to gain advantages in public contracting. That secrecy is now crumbling in the case of a new “urgency” bill that authorizes a Monterey County water agency to use an alternative bidding procedure to build a pipeline project.

Can unions whip this bill through the legislature before new revelations about backroom deals undermine local support for it? It depends on how many Republicans in the Assembly and Senate see construction union support as useful to their political futures.

A Mundane Objective: Awarding a Contract for a Water Storage Project

The Monterey County WaterResources Agency proposes a $25 million pipeline to improve water storage by transferring water between two reservoirs. It wants to use a construction procurement procedure called “design-build.” Instead of awarding separate design and construction contracts to the lowest responsible bidders, the agency would award one combined contract for the project based on subjective scoring criteria.

Since the early 1990s, the California legislature has passed… Read More

As the current legislative session winds to a desultory close, I had the occasion recently to look back on the bills Republican Assembly Members had offered to make the state more business friendly. The sight was not a pretty one. Dead Republican bills littered the committee rooms and assembly floor. The local morgue does not have enough toe tags for all of the good, pro-jobs bills killed this year in Sacramento.

For example, the Republicans proposed several bills offering tax incentives to small businesses. Paul Cook’s AB 166 eliminated the yearly Minimum Franchise Tax on small businesses to make easier expansion and the hiring of new workers. If wholesale elimination was too much for the Democrats, then Martin Garrick offered AB 821 reducing that Minimum Franchise Tax from $800 to $100 for the second through tenth years of operation. If even that was too much, Mike Morrell proposed AB 368 to cut the tax for only the first six taxable years. And finally, if all else failed, Jim Silva had a bill, AB 831, to at least provide a break in the Minimum Franchise Tax to the few entrepreneurs who establish single member limited liability companies. No, no, no, no,… Read More