A long awaited study of the costs to small businesses from state regulations is finally out, and on first blush seems to reinforce the argument that state lawmakers should scale back their meddling ways.

But the study appears thin on an actual roadmap forward for policymakers, and may not help untangle the complicated issue of which regulations are superfluous, and which ones... even if costly... serve a worthy purpose.
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She said it with what sounded like a sigh of resignation: Laura Chick is finally getting a BlackBerry.

Maybe that's one way of explaining how much things are changing for the former Los Angeles city controller, who's ending her first week in Sacramento as the state's new 'inspector general for federal stimulus funds'. Or something like that.

Maybe job #1 should be fixing that clunky title.
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The first report on federal stimulus dollars in California and around the nation is out, and poses two key questions: do local officials have the resources and training to follow all the rules, and can anyone really peg the full impact of all this money?
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California's portion of the federal stimulus money seems to be flowing a little faster every day. And with it comes folks watching how it will be spent. A lot of folks.

On this morning's edition of The California Report, I reported on the complexity involved in managing some $48 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That management, and distribution, is passing through multiple channels, often led by Governor Schwarzenegger's economic stimulus task force but also including the Legislature, local officials, and others.

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The public policy battle of the week has featured a looming deadline for California gas station owners... and demands that the deadline be extended.

But more interesting politically is what kind of official response would be given to one of those asking for an extension -- Governor Schwarzenegger.

And today, the governor's choice to lead the agency in question sort of went along with his request. Yes, sort of.
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Some good financial news for California coming out of the office of Treasurer Bill Lockyer this morning, as more than half of the planned $4 billion in state general obligation bonds were sold before midday on the West Coast.

A spokesman for Lockyer says $2.4 billion in GO bond purchases were made by individual investors this morning. It's been nine months since the state has sold GO bonds, the kind of bonds that are considered to be pretty much the gold standard in government debt (in that they are backed by the "full faith and credit" of the state).

[UPDATE 5:15 pm - Final first day total was $3 billion in bonds sold. "Things are going very, very well," Lockyer said in a phone interview this afternoon.]
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Affordable housing projects that could fall into foreclosure and be converted to market rate housing. Environmental restoration and preservation projects with vendors that haven't been paid for months. School construction projects that are stopped dead in their tracks.

Those are just some of the real-life examples provided today to the obscure, but suddenly important, state financial panel that met today in hopes of unfreezing short-term loans of state government cash.
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