Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Legislature Wants to Borrow More, Natch Politicians plan to borrow $10 billion from Wall Street for school construction and make taxpayers pay it back plus 80 percent in total interest costs. Several years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom bragged about having a $97.5 billion surplus to expand health care, social equity, and educational programs. But facing mid-term elections in November 2022, Newsom and the State Legislature hatched a plan to give more than $9 billion of this money back to low—and moderate-income California residents. And for some reason, Newsom signed a contract with an out-of-state company instead of issuing checks to send this money as prepaid debit cards. According to recent reports, over half the cards issued still had unspent funds as of April. Some 624,000 cards had not even been activated. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being held by the state’s contractor, Money Network, benefiting no one in California. Worse, the state auditor released a report recently saying Money Network failed to answer half of the calls from residents who wanted to speak with an agent about the program or problems with their cards. Because of that, the auditor said it’s impossible to track how much fraud occurred, even though, per its $25 million contract with the state, Money Network was supposed to limit the fraud rate to 1 percent. And the state just signed another $32 million contract with Money Network to handle more benefits.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the legislation to place the bond on the ballot (AB 247) includes a “sweetener” for the State Building and Construction Trades Council. In an attempt to address concerns that poor school districts have little access to the state matching fund, because these small, primarily rural districts can’t raise the match, the state plans to increase state funding for certain districts on a sliding scale. The bill creates a sliding scale system where lower-wealth school districts will receive a higher state funding share for projects. The state grant amount for new construction would increase from 50 percent to 55 percent, and for modernization from 60 percent to 65 percent, based on the district's ability to generate local funds, the percentages of low-income, foster care, and English learner students, whether the district has fewer than 200 students, and whether the district’s project has a project labor agreement. We all know the 18 percent cost increase for a PLA will certainly help these poorer districts build new, or repair existing facilities.
___

If You Are Planning on Social Security, Bob, Yeah, Well, Don’t Social Security has been known as “the third rail of American politics” since the early 1980s. Touching the program can prove deadly to a politician’s career, the thinking goes. The program is on solid footing, but the latest projections point to benefit cuts in the next decade. On the campaign trail, the presidential candidates are promising to preserve the program and protect seniors. Still, snappy lines at campaign rallies can mask the issue's complexities. “I think there's a real difficulty in talking about Social Security because there's been so much storytelling,” said Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute. “And there's so many myths out there about how the program works.” For years, the system has been paying out more in benefits than it brings in in payroll taxes, partly due to the combination of lower birth rates and an aging population. Another reason is growing income inequality. There’s a cap on the income taxed for Social Security, so the Americans who earn the most — and their employers — only pay Social Security taxes on the first $168,600 of income. Stephen Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, explained the issue to members of Congress in testimony before the House Budget Committee earlier this month. More
___

Utah To Finally Get Its Own Passport Office, After Romney Push Salt Lake City will get a permanent passport office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Tuesday. The closest passport office to Salt Lake is currently 500 miles away in Denver. Still, after a concerted effort by Sen. Mitt Romney and other members of Utah's congressional delegation, an office will soon be open in Utah. Romney released a statement after the announcement saying he and his team had worked for more than three years to bring a passport agency to Utah: "Utah is experiencing rapid population growth as it becomes a center for global commerce and tourism - as well as a home base to thousands of Latter-day Saints who embark on worldwide religious missions each year," Romney said. "A passport agency in Salt Lake now means that Utahns will not have to travel such long distances to obtain in-person consular services. I could not be more thrilled with today's announcement." In a statement released alongside the announcement, Blinken said six new agencies will open, including the one in Salt Lake, and that the department is issuing more passports “than ever before.” Story
___

Flash: Indoor Heat Rule Done For the second time in three months, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board has adopted a rule to protect indoor workers from heat illness. In contrast to the controversial and ultimately rejected March version, this one will likely pass muster with the Office of Administrative Law. It could become effective as soon as August. The new standard is General Industry Safety Orders §3396, and it closely follows the current outdoor heat regulation in many instances. Employers must provide a quart of water per hour, access to “cool-down” areas, emergency response and acclimation procedures, and training. The basic provisions trigger when the indoor temperature reaches 82ºF. More detailed requirements kick in when the temperature is 87ºF, the heat index equals 87ºF, employees wear clothing that restricts heat removal, and the temperature is at least 82ºF, or they work in a high-radiant heat area and the temperature is 82º. In those cases, employers must measure the temperature and heat index and evaluate environmental risk factors. Employees must have “active involvement” in planning and conducting these tasks. Employers then must use engineering and administrative controls and, in some cases, personal heat-protective equipment to protect employees from the heat. Prisons, local detention facilities, and juvenile facilities are exempted from the regulation and will be subject to separate rulemaking. With the standard newly adopted, the Board is requesting OAL expedite its effective date. If that happens, the standard will be in force by early August. If not, the rule will take effect on October 1st.
___

Labor Commissioner Audit: At a recent hearing, state labor officials discussed an audit of the Labor Commissioner’s Office that said severe understaffing is the primary cause of backlogs in the unit handling wage theft claims. Lawmakers were skeptical that approving more positions — which they have done the past few years — would completely solve the problem. Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower said some of her initiatives, such as assigning staff more efficiently, are promising. New positions have helped the office shave the average wait time for a wage claim hearing and decision from 1,000 days to 800 over the past two years. That’s an improvement from the 890 found in the audit, but still a far cry from the 135 required by state law — which the office has failed to reach for decades. As part of a business-union deal reached over PAGA last week, the state will soon hand the department emergency hiring authority to try to address the staffing crisis.
___

Making Voting Easier... Or Harder?: Nearly a decade ago, California revamped its voter registration program to allow eligible people to register to vote when they visit the Department of Motor Vehicles. But with 4.7 million eligible Californians still not registered to vote — more than the combined population of half of the states in the U.S. — advocates are pushing a proposal to further streamline the automatic registration process. SB 299, by Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), would implement a “back-end” process, automatically registering people to vote if the DMV or other state agencies receive information verifying eligibility, allowing them to opt out later. Limón told POLITICO that while the bill doesn’t address voter turnout, removing the step for people to opt-in to voting allows organizations to focus on informing voters on the issues. But the bill’s opponents—the ACLU, League of Women Voters and Naleo Education Fund—argue the risks of implementing a new voter registration system outweigh the potential benefits. In an opposition letter, the groups said that while they share the goal of increasing voter registration, they believe the proposal “has significant potential to increase voter confusion, incorrectly deny eligible voters registration opportunities, create erroneous registrations and strip important voter preference information from registration records.”
___

A new decision by an NLRB Regional Director may help clarify the issue. A question that has confounded many in the labor relations community for years is whether or not worker centers are, in fact, labor organizations. However, a new National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Regional Director (RD) decision may shed some light on the subject.
___

EV Charging Desert  A new study led by Harvard University shows that some rural counties across the U.S. have become EV “charging deserts.” According to the study, 34 counties that once had public charging stations no longer do, and three dozen other counties have lost most of theirs. The study shows that the U.S. charging network’s reliability is at 78 percent, well below the Biden administration’s 97 percent goal. The charging network is “uneven,” according to Omar Asensio, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor doing a fellowship at Harvard’s Institute for Business in Global Society and one of the study's authors. Loren McDonald, the founder of the EV-charging data hub EVAdoption, said multiple factors could contribute to the trend. “They didn’t get a lot of use, and they got old and stopped working,” he said. “There was no motive, either by the charging network or the host, to keep them going.” Story
___

Newsom Warns Of ‘Forces of Darkness’ Ahead of Presidential Debate Gov. Gavin Newsom struck a somber tone in his annual remarks to Californians last Tuesday. He warned that the state’s democratic values are at stake while castigating Republican opponents for rolling back reproductive rights and failing to pass meaningful immigration reform. He then announced he was immediately returning to Marin, which is, apparently, immune.
___

Register for the July 10 virtual meeting for ADOT’s Electric Vehicle 2024 Plan Update The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) will host a virtual public meeting on July 10 for the 2024 Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Infrastructure Deployment Plan Update. The update will include information about the additional highways being added as EV corridors, proposed station locations, and the status of implementing stations identified in the 2022 and 2023 plans.

The virtual meeting will be held:

• Wednesday, July 10 at 6 p.m.
• Visit AZDOT.gov/EVPlan to register for the meeting and receive your link to attend.

The public can provide feedback on the EV Plan update through July 17 in the following ways:

• Complete an online survey: azdot.gov/EVcomments
• Email: AZEVPlan@azdot.gov
• Call: (800) 915-4301
• Mail: ADOT EV Plan, 1655 W. Jackson, MD 126F, Phoenix, AZ 85007
• Attend the virtual public meeting

For more information about the EV plan, visit AZDOT.gov/EVPlan.
___

House Appropriators Lop Off a Fifth of DOL's Budget, a Third of NLRB's House Republican appropriators are again seeking steep cuts to the Department of Labor’s budget as part of funding legislation released last week. The GOP proposed allocating $10.5 billion for DOL, a 23 percent cut from the $13.5 billion set aside for the department in the fiscal year that runs through the end of September. In March, President Joe Biden requested an additional $318 million in discretionary funding for DOL above FY24 levels. House appropriators attempted to slash DOL’s budget by about 30 percent last year, only to see their efforts dashed by their Senate counterparts amid White House pushback to such heavy cutbacks. GOP appropriators want to slice $75 million from DOL’s two main worker-protection arms, the Wage and Hour Division and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a combined 12 percent cut to their budgets. The funding bill would bring the WHD budget down to $235 million and provide nearly $557.8 million for OSHA. In contrast, the Biden administration requested a $121 million boost for the two branches in its FY25 request. Separately, Republicans revived their bid to strip the National Labor Relations Board of a third of its funding, bringing its budget down to $200 million. Earlier in Biden’s term, the NLRB received its first increase in years, staving off impending furloughs. The White House had requested that the independent agency be brought up to $320 million, a 6.9 percent increase for FY25.
___

Arizona State Legislature Refers 11 Measures to The General Election Ballot, Most Since 1984 The Arizona State Legislature adjourned earlier this month, referring 11 measures to the ballot—five state statutes and six constitutional amendments. This is the most legislatively referred measures on the ballot since 1984, when 13 measures were on the ballot. This is also the third-highest year on record in the state. Some measures did not make the ballot—an additional 15 amendments and five statutes passed one chamber but not the other. Arizona has a divided government. Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) was elected in 2022. This is the first time since 2008 that Arizona had a Democratic governor. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has controlled both chambers of the Legislature since 2003. In April, Hobbs set the record for the most vetoes of any governor in Arizona history, vetoing 185 bills since taking office in January 2023. In Arizona, legislatively referred measures do not require gubernatorial approval to go on a statewide ballot for a popular vote of the people, so they provide a different approach for the legislature to enact policy potentially. Story
___

Court Rejects Phoenix and Tucson Prevailing Wage Ordinances A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Monday ruled that attempts by Phoenix and Tucson to establish prevailing wage ordinances for public works projects violated state law. Attorneys from the Goldwater Institute successfully argued on behalf of the Associated General Contractors (AZAGC), the Arizona Builders Alliance (ABA), and the Associated Minority Contractors of Arizona (AMCA). Story
___

Does Arizona Have Enough Water? Phoenix-Area Cities Are Spending Big To Make Sure It Does The Biden Administration has poured money … allocating $4 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act for Colorado River projects. … The Biden administration framed the spending effort as “water conservation,” but Arizona’s municipal water leaders aren’t using it to make changes traditionally considered conservation. Instead of paying for small tweaks to water use – like encouraging residents to install low-flow showerheads or rip out their thirsty lawns – many are thinking bigger, putting their multimillion-dollar checks towards billion-dollar infrastructure projects to keep taps flowing for decades. Cities like Peoria are planning to engineer their way out of the problem. Story