Daily Business Report: Wednesday, April 10, 2024
How California legislators got more than
$1.4 million in travel and gifts in 2023
By Jeremia Kimelman | CalMatters
Last June, more than half of California’s lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike, with no particular ideological preference — attended a celebratory gala for new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. They left with a gift: A personally engraved box worth $85.94.
These gifts are documented in financial disclosures that elected officials in California have to file every March for the previous calendar year. The reports, officially called Form 700, provide insight into gifts, sponsored travel, plus any property they own and stocks they hold.
As part of the new Digital Democracy initiative, CalMatters has extracted the information from these reports into a series of spreadsheets that are accessible to the public and has analyzed them to give a glimpse into potential financial conflicts of interest.
How much were gifts worth?
First, the rules: If you take a legislator out to dinner and the bill is at least $50, they have to report it. And if you give them something that puts them over the $590 annual gift limit, they have to give it back.
In 2023, gifts worth a total of more than $330,000 were given to legislators, according to the reports. That total is more than double the $163,000 worth of gifts reported in 2022. All but one of the 120 lawmakers received a gift. The outlier: Sen. Dave Cortese, a Campbell Democrat, who hasn’t reported taking a gift for at least the last three years.
Illustration by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters; iStock
How free trips for California legislators lead to bills.
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Film and TV productions reap millions
from California’s tax credit program
The California Film Commission awarded $152 million in tax credits to 12 television projects – one relocating series, three recurring television series, and eight new television series – through its Film and Television Tax Credit Program.
The 12 projects will spend an estimated $1.1 billion in California during their upcoming season, supporting in-state local businesses and employing 2,300 crew, 2,200 cast, and 50,000 background performers – the latter measured in days worked. With filming beginning later this year, these projects will offer crucial opportunities for local workers in the industry – projecting an estimated 1,253 filming days in California, including 39 shoot days planned outside of the Los Angeles 30-Mile Studio Zone in Oxnard, Ventura, Lancaster, and San Diego County.
Amazon MGM Studios’ “Fallout,”which is relocating from New York for their second season, is projected to contribute approximately $153 million in qualified expenditures and employ approximately 170 cast and crew, making it one of the relocating projects with the largest total qualified expenditures in the Film and Television Tax Credit Program’s history. With the addition of “Fallout,” the program has now attracted a total of 33 relocating series from other states and nations since the program was launched in 2009.
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SDSU Speech-Language Pathology
grad program soars to 12th nationally
San Diego State University’s master’s degree program in speech-language pathology is No. 12 in the nation and the College of Education is No. 48, according to new rankings of graduate schools by U.S. News & World Report.
Released Tuesday, both numbers improve upon the most recent previous rankings for those programs. The speech-language pathology program climbed up from its last highest ranking in 2020 at No. 25, and the ranking for the College of Education is one slot higher than the program’s best placement set last year.
“We have emphasized training all speech-language pathologists (SLPs) on how to assess and treat speech, language, and communication disorders in people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds,” said Ignatius Nip, director of the SDSU School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. “We also have strong relationships and collaborations with the greater San Diego community which provides our students with ample opportunities to gain clinical experience in a wide range of settings,” he added.
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How climate change will impact food
production and financial institutions
By Christine Clark | UC San Diego
Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy have developed a new method to predict the financial impacts climate change will have on agriculture, which can help support food security and financial stability for countries increasingly prone to climate catastrophes.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses climate and agricultural data from Brazil. It finds that climate change has a cascading effect on farming, leading to increased loan defaults for one of the nation’s largest public sector banks. Over the next three decades, climate-driven loan defaults could increase by up to 7%, according to the study.
The projections in the paper revealed that although temperatures are rising everywhere, there is substantial variation in what that looks like from region to region, which underscores the need to build distinct types of physical and financial resilience.
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California Western School of Law’s
Innocence Clinic open to students
California Western School of Law (CWSL)’s Innocence Clinic is now open to students looking to receive academic credit to work on innocence and post-conviction cases. This will be the first time that CWSL will offer students the opportunity to participate in clinical innocence work during the summer session.
Over the past few months, CWSL’s partnership with Megan D. Baca and her team at California Innocence Advocates (Cal-IA) have provided volunteer opportunities for students to help free the wrongly convicted from prison, receiving critical hands-on experience in innocence work.
CWSL and Cal-IA are now pleased to be able to offer the Innocence Clinic for four units of academic credit during the Summer 2024 academic term, which begins May 19.
Students will work alongside experienced post-conviction attorneys to seek the release of wrongfully convicted prisoners in California.
OmniSync completes key pilot contracts
California-based software and services startup OmniSync Incorporated announces the successful completion of two key pilot contracts aimed at expanding support to the Federal grant/contract ecosystem. Under these pilots, OmniSync has collaboratively curated, distributed, and actively scouted content and key professionals relevant to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, under the higher-level guidance of Federal agencies.
EDD introduces procedural changes affecting individuals, businesses
The California Employment Development Department (EDD) has recently introduced significant procedural changes affecting individuals and businesses subject to audit assessments. These changes have implications for those facing audit findings, particularly in cases involving the reclassification of independent contractors, low officer compensation, or unreported officer owner compensation.
Trevi Therapeutics to present at American Thoracic Society conference
Trevi Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing the investigational therapy Haduvio (oral nalbuphine ER) for the treatment of chronic cough in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and refractory chronic cough, announced that data from the Phase 2 CANAL trial will be presented at the American Thoracic Society 2024 International Conference in San Diego May 17-27. The presentation will be on May 19.
Trust & Will releases Millennial Estate Planning Study findings
Trust & Will, the leading digital estate planning and settlement platform in the U.S., releases the findings of its fourth annual Millennial Estate Planning Study, providing insight from nearly 15,000 Millennials on end-of-life and estate planning preferences. Amidst a tornado of economic pressures, millennials are planning for both their current and future lives, but also remain concerned about their ability to build and pass on wealth to future generations.More than half of Millennials do not know what would happen to their assets if they died without an estate plan.
Adcentrx Therapeutics appoints Meng Jiang a chief financial officer
Adcentrx, a biotechnology company revolutionizing Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) therapeutics for cancer and other life-threatening diseases, announced the appointment of Meng Jiang as chief financial office. Ms. Jiang joins Adcentrx from CBC Group where she was senior managing director and Management Committee member. She has been a board member of Adcentrx through CBC Group’s seed investment in the company in 2021.
Phane Therapeutics’ PT217 granted Fast Track designation by the FDA
Phanes Therapeutics Inc., a clinical stage biotech company focused on innovative drug discovery and development in oncology, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to PT217 for the treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer with disease progression following platinum chemotherapy with or without a checkpoint inhibitor. PT217 was also granted orphan drug designation for the treatment of small cell lung cancer by the FDA in 2022.
Blue Compass RV continue expansion with Airstream of San Diego
Blue Compass RV announced continued expansion with the addition of a new flagship Airstream location in the San Diego market. The new exclusive Airstream store is in San Marcos on a beautiful dealership campus next to Blue Compass RV San Marcos. This is the 10th Airstream location for Blue Compass RV, and the 8th Blue Compass RV dealership in California.
Multifamily Utility Company announces Banyan rebrand
Multifamily Utility Company, a national leader in utility billing and expense management, announces their rebrand to Banyan Utility to emphasize the company’s broad customer base and strong foundational growth. The Banyan name ideally captures the continued focus on serving multifamily industry partners, simultaneously positioning the company to cater to expanding industry sectors.
CLICS Technology to power Goldwell Digital Depot System
CLICS LLC announced that it has reached a multi-year agreement to supply technology and services to power Kao Salon Division’s breakthrough Goldwell Digital Depot System (DDS). CLICS has developed the first digitally controllable professional salon hair color line and automated Color-as-a-Service (CaaS). Under the agreement, CLICS is supplying its dispenser, mobile app, automated color supply chain, AI color matching technology, and service to Kao Salon Division.
Platform Science raises $125 million in growth capital
Plaform Science, a leading edge application platform for transportation, announced that it raised $125 million in growth capital to accelerate innovation in the commercial transportation sector. Key strategic investors included C.R. England, Cummins, Daimler Truck, PACCAR, RyderVentures, and Schneider. New financial investors included Activant Capital, BDT & MSD Partners, and Manhattan Venture Partners. Platform Science also had strong participation from existing investors, including 8VC, NewRoad Capital Partners, and Prologis Ventures.
Teradata and Anaconda announce new integration
Anaconda Inc. and San Diego-based Teradat announced a new integration to bring the most popular and widely used Python and R packages to Teradata VantageCloud through the Anaconda Repository. The integration with ClearScape Analytics, a powerful engine for deploying end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), is designed to provide enterprises with the ability to deploy large-scale data science, AI/ML, and generative AI use cases that can cost-effectively deliver value for the enterprise.
