California — a state whose officials love to tout it as the world’s fifth largest economy — is late producing a report on its own financial health for the sixth year in a row.

This impending crisis may lack the recent drama that the balanced budget requirement periodically imposes. But if the growing problem of Californians paying too much money for sub-par government services is left unaddressed, the foundations for a prosperous economy will be undermined.

When arguing about whether the Treasury needed to take urgent action to deal with soaring federal debt in the 1980s, the late former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Herb Stein coined Stein’s Law. It was simple and obvious: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”

California’s shortcomings in transparency have not gone unnoticed outside the state. An organization called Truth in Accounting, which monitors financial information management across the nation, just issued a 50-state score card on transparency and California scored third from the bottom.

Truth in Accounting has once again created a transparency score for the financial reporting by state governments to encourage the publication of transparent and accurate government financial information.

"Another scorecard ranked California one of the worst states financially. Truth in Accounting’s 14th annual Financial State of the States report scored California 42nd among the 50 states.

"In fiscal 2022, 28 states didn’t have enough revenue to pay all of their bills, according to the 14th annual Financial State of the States report, published by the Chicago-based nonprofit Truth in Accounting.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the fiscal health of all 50 states based on the latest available data from states’ fiscal year 2022 annual comprehensive financial reports.

New Jersey ranked last for having the worst fiscal health and the greatest taxpayer burden. Not far behind was Connecticut, followed by Illinois, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Kentucky, Delaware, Louisiana, California and Vermont in the bottom ten.

By contrast, 22 states reported surpluses, the majority of which are led by Republican governors."

"(The Center Square) - The city of Los Angeles' controller had a message for city officials: you aren’t spending enough.

The controller put out a recent report for 2023 that said while spending has increased 35% over the past six years, the city isn’t spending all of its revenues.

"The City is not spending what it is budgeting for which means less services, resources, and infrastructure are being provided for Angelenos," the controller’s October report stated."

Now Available

Our annual report on state fiscal health. Debt among the states improved slightly. Going from $1.2 trillion down to $938.6 billion. 

What happened? 

How did your state do? Read the full report below. 

https://www.truthinaccounting.org/news/detail/financial-state-of-the-states-2023

This year's report found that 31 states did not have enough money to pay all of their bills.

Did you know that many cities, such as Chicago and Los Angeles, do not include the financial information of their school districts and other underlying entities in their financial reports and budgets? The result is taxpayers are on the hook for far more debt than they know. To provide a more complete picture of the 10 most populous U.S. cities including their largest underlying government units, Truth in Accounting has released its annual City Combined Taxpayer Burden report.

Includes: "Truth in Accounting recently released their 2022 “Fiscal State of the Cities.” The report examines the balance sheets of the seventy-five largest U.S. cities, including fifteen California cities, which it analyzed using 'Full Accrual Calculations and Techniques. ... a dozen California cities are in the red. Sacramento, Santa Ana, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Anaheim have between $4,300 and $6,600 of tax burden per taxpayer."

Includes: "California's 2020 annual comprehensive financial report took 583 days to produce. ... According to data from Truth in Accounting, the median U.S. state produced its 2020 annual comprehensive financial report 184 days after the end of its fiscal year. By contrast, California took 583 days, nearly 20 months, to file its annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2020. "

Includes: "Basis for Disclaimer of Opinion on the Unemployment Programs Fund . . . The Employment Development Department has inadequate internal control over its accounting of money it received and spent related to unemployment benefits. As a result, the department was unable to provide complete and accurate accounting information supporting transfers from  … "

Includes: "As California mulls whether to possibly send another round of stimulus checks to deal with a massive projected budget surplus, one state lawmaker on Wednesday made the case for more tax rebates."

Includes: "Despite the ongoing global pandemic and its disparate health and economic impacts on Californians, revenues are growing at historic rates and we estimate the state will have a $31 billion surplus ... " Sheila's note: I guess they don't consider the $107.5 billion unfunded pension liability and the $113.9 billion of unfunded retiree health liability "committments."

By Keeley Webster, includes “… ‘Boomer retirements could be a factor,’ said Marc Joffe, a senior analyst with the Reason Foundation. ‘But, whatever the excuse, it is totally unacceptable that the biggest entity in the municipal market is over nine months late in filing audited financial statements. ”

By Ron Fink, includes “… The Santa Barbara County grand jury investigated the health of the CalPERS system; its conclusion wasn’t very optimistic for us taxpayers. … Should employees worry about receiving their retirement benefits? The short answer is no, since taxpayers subsidize their retirement fund from taxes collected to provide services, and more funds would be diverted from tangible improvements to CalPERS.” 

By Joseph Bishop-Henchman and Andrew Wilford, includes “A proposed constitutional amendment, ACA 11, would accomplish the unlikely goal of making the taxes that California currently demands from its residents look restrained. ”

By Michael Tilden, includes “This report follows up on significant concerns raised in our previous assessments on the development and implementation of the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). … For the third consecutive year, the State will issue late financial statements, resulting in part from state agencies’ challenges in using FI$Cal. ”