The funding went up. Per-student spending rose 14% inflation-adjusted, and California climbed from the high 20s to 16th nationally in per-pupil spending. But a 2014 law called AB 1469 routed a large share of that increase into the CalSTRS pension system, and by 2025-26 the total contribution rate hit 37.7% of covered payroll — nearly 38 cents on every dollar of teacher pay. The Public Policy Institute of California found that rising pension costs absorbed about 25% of the entire pre-pandemic spending increase. Nobody voted on that.
Then there's the money that never arrived at all. A study published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, using confidential Franchise Tax Board data, found that 45% of the expected revenue from the 2012 tax eroded in the first year and 61% within two. The counterintuitive part: migration accounted for less than 10% of that. The millionaires mostly stayed — they just reported less.
We also break down Proposition 43, the measure whose own author, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, is publicly telling voters to reject it. To understand why, you have to go back to a 2017 California Supreme Court case about a marijuana dispensary in Upland, and forward to Los Angeles Measure ULA — the mansion tax that raised about a third of what it promised while UCLA researchers found it cut housing production by roughly 1,910 units a year.
Plus: the new phase of Orange County's forensic audit into COVID-era contracts, and the officials who were warned about Andrew Do and did nothing.
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California Underground covers the California stories the rest of the media ignores — following the audits, the contracts, the budgets, and the officials responsible for outcomes that aren't matching the promises. No team. Just receipts.
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