Next year’s county budget will grow and much of the increase will be for public safety programs. However, supervisors are beginning to raise questions and consider the effect of public safety spending on other programs. On Monday, the board approved the county executive officer’s proposed budget for fiscal 2015-16, which begins July 1. But the…

One of this session’s legislative bills Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed last month was Assembly Bill 194 that would have amended the Brown Act, California’s Open Government law. His veto does not in any way change California case law regarding the Brown Act requirements, according to Jim Ewert, California Newspaper Publishers Association general counsel. The bill…

Nearly a year after California Attorney General Kamala Harris released her first report on “In School + On Track,” the state legislature responded to her plea to change the pattern of truancy in state schools. In September 2013, Harris released the report as an effort to draw attention to the problem of truancy of school-aged…