The important task of watching how California’s money is being spent is the responsibility of the State Controller. The Controller is the bookkeeper and accountant of all the state’s public funds and administers the state payroll system and unclaimed property laws. Some of the other areas that fall under the office’s responsibility are the audits for the state lottery, California school districts, oil and gas lease royalties, and a variety of local governments. The Controller also serves on 76 state boards and commissions, including the state tax board, the Board of Equalization (which handles property taxes, sales tax rates, the regulation and management of business licenses, and liquor licensing among other areas) and oversees the audits for the retirement funds for CalPERS (California Public Employees Retirement System) and CalSTRS (California State Teachers Retirement System).
The Democratic Party has not made an endorsement for Controller, and the Republican Party has a policy to not make any statewide endorsements during a primary, leaving candidates to be endorsed by local chapters.
According to polling data from U.S. Survey and the Field Report, the top three candidates for Controller are Republican Ashley Swearengin, and Democrats Betty Yee and John Perez.
Swearengin was born in Texas and moved to Fresno in 1987. She attended California State University at Fresno and earned both a Bachelor’s degree and an MBA there. In 2002 she co-founded the Regional Jobs Initiative which is focused on helping curb unemployment. In 2005, Swearengin became lead executive for the California Partnership for San Joaquin Valley, a group formed under former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2008, she was elected Mayor of Fresno, campaigning on the issues of jobs and education, safe neighborhoods, effective and responsive government, and regional leadership. She was elected to a second term in 2012.
In 2012, Fresno was on the “watch list” to fall into bankruptcy. Swearengin took a variety of actions, such as reducing 25 percent of the city’s staff, and outsourcing some services. She also developed a 10-year plan to stabilize the city finances as well as a 12-year, two-year and five-year budget forecasts. As Controller, she plans to have a “fiscally conservative, comprehensive approach” to the budget, and consolidate agencies and simplify the tax code in the hope of attracting new business to California.
Betty Yee was born in San Francisco and was educated in the public school system before attending the University of California at Berkeley, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, and a Master’s degree in Public Administration. She served as a county public health commissioner and worked in the non-profit sector before working as a Senate Fellow with the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. She moved on to serve in senior staff positions in a variety of policy and fiscal committees. Ultimately, she became the chief deputy director for budget with the California Department of Finance, developing the Governor’s budget before becoming a member of the California State Board of Equalization.
Yee believes in transparency of government and was responsible for the audio-visual streaming of the Board’s public proceedings. Some of the proposals she is initiating are to crack down on “tax cheaters” who place “a disproportionate burden on honest, hardworking taxpayers,” enacting state tax equity for same-sex couples, expanding open space preservation with tax relief for conservation, and updating state tax rules to promote the green economy and its new technologies and products.
John Perez is a native of East Los Angeles. He was first elected to the State Assembly in 2008 during the recession. In 2010 John was selected to lead the Assembly, becoming the state’s first openly gay Speaker. During his time in the state assembly, Perez has succeeded in passing balanced, on-time budgets for three years in a row. These budgets have eliminated the state’s structural deficit, balanced its budget and improved its credit rating.
Perez has also introduced legislation creating GoBiz (the Governor’s Office on Business) to attract new business and jobs to California. Giving tax credits to green businesses, as well as working to strengthen tourism and other trades which employ Californians has been another accomplishment, including raising the state minimum wage. Other legislation passed includes cutting student fees by 40 percent at the UC and CSU campuses.
John Perez has also worked to implement the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), including the expansion of Medi-Cal and the creation of Covered California, the first health benefits exchange in the U. S. which offers lower cost health insurance to Californians and small businesses.
