In command of state finances
The controller is the state’s chief financial officer, so it’s important that the person who holds this office has a strong background in fiscal planning and accountability.
The controller sits on 76 state boards and one commission, so it’s also tremendously helpful if the position holder has a comprehensive vision of how California’s financial health affects its ability to provide services and protect its competitive advantages.
Our choice for this position is the current officeholder, Betty Yee.
Yee, a Democrat who’s running for a second term, has been a thoughtful and responsible steward of California’s checkbook. Thanks to Yee’s leadership, along with the fiscal discipline of Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislators, the state’s credit rating for general obligations has ticked upward for nearly every year she’s been in office.
That’s a fine record, and many candidates would be happy to rest on those laurels. So it’s all the more impressive that Yee is determined to offer voters a strong policy focus for the next four years.
Her goal is to prepare California for an uncertain economic future of disruptive business models, precarious work and destabilizing climate change, Yee said in a meeting with The Chronicle’s editorial board.
“We’re coming up against a number of significant global changes to the way we work and the way we live that will hugely affect our ability to pay the bills for California,” Yee said. “People are starting to listen, but too many of them have only one piece of the problem, not the broader context.”
The broader context is that California must overhaul its tax code, which is currently heavily reliant on income taxes from the state’s top earners.
We need a tax code that’s more flexible and more diverse in terms of its sources. “Any tax reform has to appreciate the fact that we have six discrete economies in this state,” Yee said.
Simultaneously, California must invest in lowerand middle-income workers.
“A lot of the incentives we’ve been looking at are to incentivize technology in jobs, like robots, and we’ve neglected human capital,” Yee said.
Yee faces a low-profile Republican opponent in Konstantinos Roditis, a 38-year-old Anaheim businessman. Roditis is running on a plan to spearhead a ballot initiative changing California’s tax structure to relegate most taxes to the counties.
“In a sense I’d create many states and allow them the right to choose which taxes and percentages they want,” Roditis said.
His platform speaks to a need for greater tax flexibility based on geography, but the job of the controller requires a planner with a broader vision. Yee is that choice.