California Forward
The States Project was created to provide non-partisan and reliable information on states’ financial health in an easily accessed and digestible manner.
read moreThe Northern California city hopes, by getting citizens to dig into the budget process, it will help restore trust and confidence in local government, boost citizen engagement and make the whole budget process more transparent.
read moreIn a time of scarce resources and looming bankruptcies, cities are increasingly turning to Big Data to become more efficient. Into this space is where civic startups are putting some Silicon Valley innovation and know-how into making government work better.
read moreAccording to a completely redesigned website showing wage and benefit data for public employees across California, at an average annual salary of over $100,000, Indian Wells city employees have the highest average wages compared to any city in the state.
read moreThe Associated Press, this week, reported exclusively that it had analyzed every vote cast during the 2012 session and discovered California Assembly members changed and added their votes to legislation more than 5,000 times.
read moreA government at your fingertips. That’s what leaders in the city and county of San Francisco hope with new legislation to strengthen the city by the bay’s landmark Open Data initiatives.
read moreHave you ever blown out a tire due to an unfixed pothole and angrily wondered how much your city’s public works department actually spends on street maintenance? Or received a parking ticket that made you speculate as to how much revenue your city collects annually from parking enforcement? If you live in Palo Alto, answers to these questions and more are now just a few mouse clicks away.
read moreIn June of 2011, Richard Ravitch, former Lieutenant Governor of New York, and Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, took matters into their own hands. They shared a growing concern over the financial trajectory of the nation and how this trickled down into state budgets in the form of continued structural imbalances and an inability to provide basic services or invest in the future of state residents.
read moreIf you have been following the path of pension reform through the final few days of the California Legislature session this week, you might be scratching your head thinking you have walked into bizarro world
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