During this past month, some progress has occurred regarding wildfire funding for the U.S. Forest Service. Congress has taken its first step to provide funding for next fiscal year while President Barack Obama is seeking more money for the current fire season.   Fiscal year 2014-15 Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee…

Riverside County’s balanced budgets for 2012-13 and next fiscal year are in jeopardy, according to County Executive Jay Orr. In a mid-year budget report to the board of supervisors, Orr wrote, “Several issues burdened by multi-million deficits or unexpected costs threaten that delicate balance and make next year’s budget a challenge.” Among those issues are…

The U.S. Forest Service firefighting air tanker fleet has been slowly dwindling for years. Last month, Sen. John McCain, Arizona, with support from California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Florida’s Sen. Bill Nelson introduced a bill (S 3441) to direct the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force to transfer 14 excess C-27J Spartan…

Last month, the Riverside County Board of Supervisor’s took action to improve the transparency of its meetings’ agenda. For example, no longer will items be on the agenda with details to come later. A complete Form 11 (the description and discussion of the item) must be available when it is placed on the agenda. Financial…

With little debate, the Riverside County supervisors recently approved spending $18 million in a search to save a hundred million or more. County Executive Officer Jay Orr warned the board in January that the fiscal year 2016-17 budget, which begins July 1, would suffer from a $90- to $100-million deficit. Some of this spending is…