Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed a balanced budget last Thursday for fiscal year 2013-14 in time to begin July 1. The budget totaled $96.3 billion, including a $1 billion reserve. For the second consecutive year, the budget projects a slight surplus. This is the largest since the $100 billion budgets of 2006-07 and 2007-08….

After three months as the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, Kari Verjil submitted her report of the agency’s operations and needs to the Board of Supervisors on June 28.

On Thursday, Aug. 11, the California State Parks announced service reductions due to the spring budget cuts. The budget reductions total $11 million this fiscal year (July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012) and another $22 million in fiscal 2012-13. Mt. San Jacinto State Park’s hours of operation will be reduced, according to Superintendent Garret…

Proposition 47, alternatively the Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative or The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act, seeks to “ensure that prison spending is focused on violent and serious offenses, to maximize alternatives for non-serious, nonviolent crime, and to invest the savings generated from this act into preventing and supporting programs in K–12 schools, victim…