Category: Central Valley

Cuts at Kaweah Health include 200 jobs and 150 contract-labor positions

-January 19,2023-
Visalia-based Kaweah Health officials and supporters are literally begging the state to help keep the good ship Kaweah Health afloat after 3 years of Covid-caused losses. In a recent letter to the governor, district CEO Gary Herbst laid out a grim picture.
“We’re going on three years of uninterrupted strain on the organization and it’s taken its toll, there’s no doubt about it,” Herbst told public radio’s KVPR recently.
“ Our people are exhausted. Our leaders are exhausted.”
But the district can’t rest or simply wait for relief. As of January 17 they have announced cuts to stem the red ink tide and right size their pandemic-impacted budget. With cuts in their credit rating, leaders are launching a strategy called “ Back in the Black” Here is the challenge as they describe it to the governor.
“Kaweah Health, the largest of the 33 district hospitals still operating in California, has experienced dramatic challenges during the pandemic.
•Cumulative operating losses of $133 million from pandemic start to Oct. 31, offset in part by federal Provider Relief Funds of $61 million.
•State mandates to cease all elective surgeries during COVID surges, forcing huge losses locally.
•Soaring costs of contract labor due to the labor shortage caused by COVID-19 — $80 million in traveling nurses and $16 million in staff bonuses. •52,274 COVID-19 outpatient cases — 11% of Tulare County population.
•5,591 COVID-19 positive inpatients
•Increased average length of stay from 5.3 days before COVID-19 to 10.2 days from pandemic beginning to current time.”
The letter to the public concludes: “We ask you to join us in voicing these concerns and email Governor Newsom today, urging him to consider a one-time allocation to help district hospitals recover their financial health and to reform Medi-Cal reimbursement for lasting change.”
Cuts in jobs
Now Kaweah Health says they will make cuts, particularly in staffing costs. The district has already reduced employee numbers by 106 and eliminated 90 open positions that had not been filled when staff find was short. Now in January and early February the hospital will cut an additional 94 positions bringing the job cuts to 200.
In a report to the district finance committee this week administration said the cuts should have an annualized positive impact of $21 million.
Dramatic cuts are also underway in the hospital’s bulging contract labor numbers that had been necessary during the pandemic when so many staff were out sick.
The district had hired up to 229 full-time-equivalent positions that has been gradually pared down to 110 with 70 more scheduled to be reduced. The goal will be to use no more than 40 contract labor staffers by the end of the year.Today contract labor expense is less than half it was last May.
Administration says that should mean $55 million in annual savings.
Other labor savings categories include a reduction in overtime that will save $5.2 million on an annual basis and cuts in shift-bonuses that should save $6.2 million in this fiscal year. The hospital has also stopped contributing to employees’ 401K plans. – about a $10 million savings.
All these cuts add up to around $98 million annually- a major step toward fiscal health although likely not popular of course with those who are laid off. But, you could argue – the hospital lives to provide care another day.They also closed their Neurosciences Center and a diabetes education clinic.
Herbst adds that all staff levels have seen cuts.”All of the leaders have taken pay cuts between 10-20 percent.I remain hopeful as gut-wrenching as some of the decisions that we are having to make. We’re going to get back on our feet.”

Credit rating downgraded
“In the meantime our credit rating was downgraded to a Ba1, we’re down to 76 days cash on hand, so yeah, it is dire, but we see improvement. We definitely are seeing our dependence on contract labor decline significantly and so we expect that will start showing some bottom line improvement. I’m confident that the things we’re doing and the additional things we will do will stem the tide so to speak. It’s going to be a long road to recovery without a doubt. It’s going to take several years to get back to where we were pre-pandemic.”

Herbst recently told public radio that the hospital had a plan in November to secure a line of credit with a bank. He sent out roughly 50 requests for proposals to lenders, but says a recent downgrade to the hospital’s Moody’s credit rating made that virtually impossible. He said the new rating “spooked off” lenders.

The hospital needs to borrow money to cushion against long wait times for reimbursement. Fixing that credit rating is job one.
Besides the initiative, the district has closed their transitional care unit discharging patients under Kaweah’s obligation to others. A memo says the ramp down represents approximately $245K less in net patient revenue and $332K less in direct costs, which is a $87K positive net bottom line impact for December and a $180K impact for November and December. Apparently, the hospitali was losing around $1 million a year on this service.
Then there is the length-of-stay issue for patients. In nutshell the pandemic forced those patients who were sicker for longer to stay an average of 10 days – about double the length of time they used to. Since the worst of the pandemic, the length of stay at the Visalia hospital has been heading lower but is still around 6 days compared to under 5 as a nationwide average.
According to the American Hospital Association, delays in discharge result in hospitals and health systems undergoing additional pressure on an already overwhelmed workforce and reduce overall community access to care.
Additional costs for hospitals are also associated with delays in discharge, as they do not receive reimbursement for any costs associated with the extra days caring for patients in the hospital while patients wait to be discharged.
Unnecessary days in hospital may also increase hospital-acquired patient complications (e.g., healthcare-associated infections, falls).
Because the hospital provides service in a large low income area with a significant population (about 14%) that suffers from chronic diseases like diabetes,and an obesity epidemic, Kaweah Health has additional challenges some hospitals don’t have.

Herbst told public radio they are also exploring getting money from medical claims in advance. It’s a model that worked during the pandemic with Medicare. Medicare pre-paid $90 million worth of claims to Kaweah, which the hospital was able to pay back, according to Herbst. He says, this may be something the hospital can arrange with private insurance companies, such as Aetna or Blue Cross, to give the hospital some breathing room.

More Medi-cal patients
” Herbst adds that “we really do need the legislature to address the whole Medi-Cal program because we continue to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to more and more populations I think the governor has now expanded it to the entire undocumented immigrant population are now eligible for Medi-Cal which has certainly increased the utilization of hospitals and clinics and so forth but we are already losing tens of millions of dollars a year taking care of the Medi-Cal population and so as you add to the eligibility it just makes matters worse so going forward we really need that to be addressed. That needs to be a permanent fix.”
Herbst says the hospital is on a financial path forward that could balance its deficit by March. But the hospital, still facing debt, would continue to lose money. They say they still need help from Sacramento and that the state has yet to answer their pleas.

-January 7 2023-

Rainfall totals in Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park have already  exceeded all last water year as well as the drought year before. The chart below is as of January 7 2023.The abundant rain with an expected  deluge in coming weeks is welcome by water users all over the the Kaweah watershed and farmers who depend on the flow and the forest and criterswho live there.
The area burned out of control last year killing thousands of Giant Sequoias in several massive firestorms.

The average  rainfall in Giant Forest is 42 inches.Recent years are a fraction of that average.

Bottom graph shows the Tulare Lake Basin including Giant Forest on track to replicate the wettest year 68/69. But only if this parade of storms pattern continues.

 

Visalia’s Top 10 industries in 1993 are mostly gone today – some 30 years later

-January 4,2022-

Visalia’s Top 10 industries back in 1993 are mostly out of business or have shrunk considerably job wise some 30 years after the City of Visalia published a profile report Discover Visalia that year.

Even as more companies have landed here and expanded in an unprecedented boom in the past few years, the players, types of industries and significantly, the scale has changed big time.
Back in 1993 the top industry on the published list was Jostens American Yearbook, a commercial printing plant with a long history in the community but that is long gone in 2023.The company had seasonal employment as high as 700.

The work at Jostens was geared to get ready and print school yearbooks each winter. The plant was welcome back in the 60s when it was hard in an ag region to find full time jobs or any job in winter months, just when the company needed additional workers.

Today the big building houses an Italian produce packaging company – Sorma.

Number 2 on the list in 1993 was USDA Cotton classing facility for the Valley crop in the industrial park that employed as many as 350, again on a seasonal basis. Today the government facility carries on its work but it employs just 50 in the 3-month busy time and 8 on a permanent basis. Technology is one reason and the loss of cotton acreage in the West is another. Director Greg Townsend says the Visalia facility now covers 4 states with perhaps a quarter of the cotton gins it handled 30 years ago as the industry has shrunk.

Who was number 3 on the list? Eagle Snacks employed 338 workers, says the city report. Owner Anhueser Busch sold the plant to rival snack company Frito Lay in 1996.They opened a new potato chip plant here in 1997 but it closed in 2004 with the chip business transferred to Bakersfield. The site and buildings were bought by dairy co-op California Dairies Inc who remodeled and plumbed it to build a huge butter and powder milk plant in 2008. Visalia is the company’s corporate headquarters supporting the largest single evaporator-dryer in North America. The plant is in the middle of the biggest milk producing county in the US .California Dairies employs 500.

Vlasic Foods had a pickle plant in Visalia that employed 314 – number 4 in employment on the list.The plant owned by Campbell Soup closed in 1992.

Number 5 on the industry list is Sierra Pacific Apparel that employed 300 busy clothing makers in Visalia. It was a company that was started by Ernie Aquafresca who had worked at Bayly’s Manufacturing before it closed in 1988. Sierra Pacific closed in 1999.

Number six was Knudsen Dairy Products that ended up going bankrupt and is no longer.The company employed 200 in Visalia and was known as the largest cottage cheese plant in the US. Knudsen was bought out by Kraft but Kraft closed the Goshen Ave plant in 2006. Today it is still a milk plant owned by Milk Specialties Global operating since 2012 and owned by them since 2019.The big facility employs only a handful of workers.

California Pretzel was on the top 10 list too but the pretzel business is now long gone in Visalia. Also on the 1993 list was Taycal Press that employed 160 but has closed their doors as well. Another print company going dark.

Still on the 30 year old industry list but operating today is Kawneer, the door manufacturing plant. Moore’s Business Forms who employed 190 back then is now RL Donnelley and is still printing business forms and stickers but with a staff listed as 13. Visalia was once a printing industry hub but technology put an end to that.

So Visalia’s industrial profile suggests maybe a 95% turnover in companies but the 500-acre district is busier than ever – now filled with small and large firms, warehouses and distribution companies including the biggest – Amazon ( 1500 employees) with over 2.3 million sf here and the huge UPS hub. VF Corp employs about 1000 in Visalia. And there is plenty more to come suggests the Visalia Economic Development Corp who states that there is 14 million sq feet of industrial space in the works in the city. The new 400-job,1 million sf Ace Hardware service center is about ready to open. This month another 1.2 mil sf spec warehouse is breaking ground a mile north of Riggin and west of Plaza. The new facility is expected to open in October 2023 at a cost of $70 million. The same developer built two Amazon plants here already. The leap north is a portend of how the industrial park will grow in the future with plenty of land to accommodate it.

Besides these big operations, the industrial park has grown its “mom and pop” side as well south of Goshen Ave where developer Butch Oldfield and others have parceled out 2,5 and 20 acre lots in the American industrial blocks.Companies like American Ceramic Tile are expanding here. American Inc now manufactures and custom fabricates as well, they employed 425 in Dec 2020.

Ag-related companies like Perfection Pet Food,Peninsula Packaging, MWI(205 employees), Hydrite and Edeniq –expanding this year- carry on.

In part due to the regional UPS package hub here, industrial park companies now ship to 95 million customers overnight. So no – this is not your dad’s industrial park.

Visalia Economic Development manager Devon Jones emphasizes growth in the manufacturing sector.

“The Visalia industrial park continues to grow while adapting to the demands of the global economy. While manufacturing is changing due to technology and global competitiveness, Visalia still offers a strategic location for any company wishing to be close to the ag/food sector or to service the CA or Western US market. Currently we are seeing most of the growth in e-commerce and distribution, but manufacturing still has a strong presence in the Visalia industrial park and there are a lot of groups working on growing the sector and a quality workforce to handle the jobs of tomorrow.”

Other major employers today in the industrial park:

Graphic Packaging (Int’l Paper) employed 757 based on Dec 2020 data
Voltage Multipliers employed 220 in Dec 2020
Bluescope Buildings employed 185 in Dec 2020
Milgard Window and Doors employed 162 based on Dec 2020 data
Advanced Food Products employed 150 based on Dec 2020 data
Polymerpak (Replanet) – 165 employees – expanding in Visalia soon
Serpa Packaging – 150 employees
Sorma – 38 employees – print food packaging labeling, expanding soon
Visalia Ceramic Tile – 170 employees
UPS – as of Dec 2020 had them at 600
In Dec 2020, JoAnn Fabrics was at 300

-January 1,2023-

Eight storms coming into California by January 17

The wet weather of late December will continue into the new year according to weather model predictions.The GFS model calls for eight storms to move into the state between new years and January 17 – many covering the whole state with cold and wet AR volume storms.

High elevation rain is helping to fill key reservoirs early

Some of these AR storms are warm prompting high elevation rain to melt some snowpack. That is resulting in key northern California reservoirs to fill early in recent days. As much as five feet of precipitation has been reported in some foothill areas and many areas are on floodwatch. Folsom Dam was one of those reservoirs hit by high inflows causing the the operator to release some floodwater downstream Oroville Reservoir stood at around 1mil AF in early December but has gained 300,000AF by January 1 – most of that in a a five day period at the end of the month. Shasta saw a pulse of new inflow as well in five days as did Millerton Lake above Fresno gaining about 100,000AF in December. The dam supplies the Friant Kern Canal that waters the eastside of the Valley in summer months. Nearby Huntington Lake has seen 16 inches of rain so far this 2023 water year compared to 16 inches for all of the 2021 water year.

Tulare County farm exports mostly to the Far East

Tulare County farmers recognize their big export customers overseas. They are mostly all in the Far East according to recent county Crop Reports. The top 15 export countries for Tulare County produce are all Eastern Pacific countries except for Mexico, Canada and Guatemala. The top three are Korea, Japan and China in that order- taking some 16 million cartons of produce in 2019. The three top non-Pacific destinations, Mexico, Canada and Guatemala took just 3 million cartons.

Predictions of heavy rain and snow pile up

-December 31,2022-

NWS Hanford’s 7-day forecast calls for rain or a good chance for rain for 7 of 8 days into the new year. Already heavy precipitation brought in by an atmospheric river has soaked most of California and piled up snow in the Sierra this week. Another water laden atmospheric river will span from Friday into Saturday, taking aim at California with heavy precipitation. Forecasters call for a brief break in the rain along the West Coast for Sunday as the trough axis shifts east, but another round of precipitation is forecast once again by Monday-Tuesday.

“For now we don’t see an end to this stormy pattern” says Hanford meteorologist Antoinette Serrato.

This past Tuesday’s storm was impressive, bringing almost 3 inches to the Sierra around Hume Lake, and 2.6 inches at Wawona in Yosemite. Skiers at China Peak near Huntington Lake have seen 150 inches of snow this season and runs are open now till April.

Going forward, New Year’s day could turn wet too and the storms just keep coming. Bay Area meteorologist Brian Garcia says he sees rain for next 12 days with up to 12 inches of accumulation in coastal regions. There may be some damage to the burn scar areas of the state.

In northern California the 10-Day Feather River Basin forecast from Wednesday December 28 expects a total of almost 10 inches of precipitation to fall through January 7th – 367% of average. Shasta Lake should get rain almost every day through the 11th say forecasters, good news for the key reservoir in the state at drought levels to date.One weather model says the Sierra should see 15 inches of precipitation by January 12.

With all this precipitation forecast for the new year, analysts may have to reevaluate their dry-year predictions for 2023.Last year a wet December was followed by a bone dry January through March period.

Today snowpack is up with the southern Sierra snowpack listed at 163% of average as of December 28 and clearly more to come.
Faraday Future targets April car sales

Electric vehicle startup Faraday Future now says it will start production of new cars at their Hanford plant in late March with delivery in April 2023. The LA-based company said they have received $30 million from an existing investor. The company previously targeted production to begin last summer, then by the fourth quarter of 2022.

 

Lower prices yield lower almond acreage

Farmers say the high cost of water and other inputs as well as inflation coupled with lower demand are not covering costs to produce almonds in California this year. Now a new report by the Almond Board of California, carried out by Sacramento-based Land IQ says the nut’s total acreage declined for the first time in decades this year. New plantings are down 17 percent year over year.

“Land IQ’s report may indicate a possible trend toward lower California almond acreage in the year ahead,” ABC President and CEO Richard Waycott said in a news release this month.

The trend might be good news considering an overabundance of the nut currently.Exports have been hurt this year by the strong dollar.

Central Valley farmers are getting as little as $1.55/lb for almonds that fetched $4/lb in 2015. There has been an explosion of new plantings since then.

Thanksgiving 2022-

Greg Collins steps down from Visalia City Council-

Visalia’s population was just 30,000 when young Greg Collins first started serving on the Visalia City Council in 1975. Today he is retiring from the position as Visalia is approaching 150,000 souls.

Greg’s hand can be seen everywhere in this city and if you take a drone flight over Visalia with me, you can see it easily.

As we start our journey, notice the tree coverage across the city of 4 Creeks, presided over by giant Valley oak trees that have become the symbol of our community – shading our daily comings and goings with grace. Greg helped write the regulations to preserve the towering oaks

Then notice how the entrance to the city from Highway 99 remains a green “scenic corridor” even today in contrast with what visitors to Fresno see as they come into that town, junkyards and a trash mountain.

There is a theme here that Greg has aligned himself with – we are not another Fresno. That theme is now widely accepted conventional wisdom in Visalia.

Also follow Highway 198 into town and remember how the Visalia City Council including Greg pressed CalTrans to depress the freeway below ground level – limiting noise and traffic impacts and preserving the streetscape in Visalia while speeding visitors to our national parks.

Now take a birds eye view at Downtown Visalia and notice how the city center has remained the city center through decades of growth enshrining the idea of concentric growth that again has become conventional wisdom for the town leaders over the years.

It has not been without battles and battles that Greg sometimes did not win.Take the dispute over whether to continue rapid growth south past Packwood Creek. It turns out the city council did vote to allow growth for one large development to the south but not beyond. He lost the battle but not war.

Because of the limitation on development over decades the Mooney strip has been in-filled and renewed along the 3-mile stretch with new players, new retailers and services since. So Mearl’s has closed but became The Habit.

What did the growth limitation do? Take Sequoia Mall. It took a while but Visalia will be treated with three new retailers we never had. Sprouts, Nordstrom Rack and now Barnes and Noble will open next fall. Yes, Visalia will get a national bookstore. With Amazon here, can Trader Joe’s be far behind?

The growth limitation also spurred retailers to locate a new vibrant shopping area north of Downton in a part of the city that has historically been the low income area of town. Today it is the home to many national retailers and restaurants including a second In-N-Out. The nearby retail also anchors new housing for Visalians in the north part of the city connected by walking trails and 4-lane landscaped thoroughfares- and a second way to get to Highway 99.

Collins won the battle over bringing a national hotel brand to Downtown Visalia, considered highly controversial back then.He was among those who persuaded Downton merchants to tax themselves to support Downton forming an improvement district. He has been a big supporter of preservation of our heritage buildings including the Darling Hotel that he convinced the county to finally sell and put the art-deco beauty on the market and on the tax rolls. We know what happened then.Everyone wants to stay there.

I live on the coast and I am staying at the Darling tonite.

Speaking of preserving the economy in Downtown, Collins was a key player in keeping Kaweah Delta hospital in the Downtown area while many lobbied to move the district hospital to the outskirts of town.

Today the Downton is the region’s go-to medical hub employing thousands in the city center and attracting another big player to make multiple investments. Family Healthcare Network now employs hundreds here and is even opening their own bookstore in the old Picnic building.

Downtown Collins and all the council have supported expansion to the east into the new MicroBrew district that is converting this old automotive district east of Santa Fe to a lively entertainment district.

Speaking of expansion of Downtown, it was Collins’ idea to acquire the old railroad properties – the former Hobo Jungle to become the future Civic Center – still in the planning stage even at this week’s council meeting (pictured with fellow council members). It is also an area Collins has backed as a groundwater recharge basin, another win-win idea.

Collins fought against rezoning land on Plaza for an auto mall after dealers invested millions in the newly established east Visalia auto district- a battle he half-won with dealers today in both areas.

What about our Industrial Park?

Collins pushed for design standards for a well planned industrial district that has impressed competing Fresno leaders with why Visalia continues to attract more industry.The city’s series of general plans has protected the industrial area offering CEQ support against lawsuits while allowing for growth to the north – key to success today.

Greg is a planner and the city’s General Plan has been a guide to this well-run community.One thing Greg is proud of is how we have connected all parts of the city with 4-lane landscaped roads. He will take you on a tour if you ask him.

Collins promoted the idea of an ag-mitigation plan for new development.Even though the council overruled his approach, a lawsuit by the Sierra Club vindicated Collins position this past year and there will now be an ag mitigation plan.

Greg’s hand can be seen beyond town as well. Greg and his mentor UC Farm Advisor Alan George visited the congressman John Krebs to convince him to preserve Mineral King Valley as part of Sequoia Park – which came to pass.

We are not a Highway 99 town and never have been. Instead Visalia, located astride the 4 Creeks area, demands a water policy to preserve what we have, requiring conservation rules as well as working with land trust groups and farmers.

Greg and Visalia lost the battle decades ago to bring a UC To Visalia. But today it looks like Measure C will pass and there is hope for four year college here yet.

Indeed his work on planning, preservation and design are clearly visible from our 20,000 ft aerial tour of Visalia.

Thanks Greg! Visalia appreciates your work.
Writer John Lindt has covered Greg Collins and Visialia since 1979 when he founded Valley Voice Newspaper.He runs Sierra2thesea.net news service.

 

Local pilot program could be model for groundwater sustainability

-November 3,2022-

All over the Valley and right here, local water agencies are struggling with a state mandate to reduce pumping to reverse plunging groundwater levels and move toward “sustainability.” The Kaweah subbasin has four agencies- Groundwater Sustainability Agencies – in charge of coming up with solutions to over pumping.

“No one doubts we have an overdraft “ says King’s farmer Dino Giacomazzi, who sits on the Delta View Water Association board. The name comes from the Delta View area between Hanford and Highway 99, on both sides of 198. Delta View is part of one GSA – the Greater Kaweah GSA that is the largest of the four by acreage.

The overdraft Dino is referring to is reflected in a Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District annual chart showing the depth to groundwater at about 140 feet down in 2021 from just 50 feet in the 1970s. In parts of western edge of the Kaweah in Kings County it is deeper than that, particularly where subsidence has been measured.

Kaweah Delta WCD says the Kaweah Subbasin is currently estimated to have an annual average overdraft in excess of 80,000 acre-feet per year (an acre-foot of water equals about 326,000 gallons of water- enough to cover a football field 1-foot deep).

Within the Kaweah subbasin there are four GSAs.The Greater Kaweah GSA covers land extending well into Kings County, south to edge of Corcoran and east to Kaweah Lake. This GSA does not include Tulare city or Visalia, who must come up with their own sustainability plan.

Within the Greater Kaweah GSA – this sub group Delta View Water Assn makes up 60% of the land in the Greater Kaweah GSA- nearly 100,000 acres. It is within this district where there has been recent controversy over how to reduce pumping. Farmers in the Delta View area have little to no surface water to supplement groundwater- so called white areas.

The Delta View farmers have been lobbying for about a year to look at implementing a voluntary fallowing of farmland -using fees generated from willing farmers to pay farmers not to plant.

Giacomazzi says the Greater Kaweah GSA can “use a carrot or a stick” to guide their policy. As of October 1,2022 they have chosen to use the stick, says Dino, imposing what Delta View says are excessive fees and penalties implemented in a surprise GSA board decision in September according to a critical letter to the groundwater agency from Delta View dated October 15.

Dino says simply imposing higher fees and penalties does not guarantee there will be reduced pumping but fallowing land will.

The Greater Kaweah GSA has a goal of reducing their annual overdraft of 34,600AF.

Now comes the surprise. After ignoring these arguments, Greater Kaweah appears to have changed their minds.

On November 1, the Greater Kaweah Board agreed to look at land fallowing and put the higher fees they had put in place on hold.

They agreed to a pilot fallowing program that will test the model.

“We will be setting this up this year” says Giacomazzi.Using this approach and reduced fee structure ” we believe the district can reach sustainability in 2 to 4 years”, he maintains.

Delta View’s October 15 letter from Delta chairman Tony deGroot explains that the “Groundwater Sustainability Plan of Greater Kaweah does list a lot of projects that are designed to bring in more water and that is certainly part of the long-term answer, but short-term, the quickest way to reduce pumping is to pay farmers to fallow.”

The letter maintains that “The fees that what farmers expected to have to pay would generate about $18 million. Delta View estimates that for a payment of about $1,000 per acre, farmers would be willing to fallow some ground and $15,000,000 would fallow 15,000 acres, saving more than 43,000 acre-feet of groundwater.” That is more than the estimated overdraft.

Dino explains that like his ranch and most of his neighbors, “we are multi-generation family businesses who don’t want to suck up all the water,” leaving less for their heirs. Besides farms, GSAs must concern themselves with not drying up rural drinking water wells or wells in disadvantaged communities nearby.

caption: depth to groundwater keeps falling

-October 27,2022-

PRESS CONFERENCE INFORMATION

Visalia, CA – At the October 25, 2022, Board meeting, Visalia Unified Superintendent Kirk Shrum recommended to the Board a new partnership with University of California Merced and their Automatic Admissions Program (MAAP).

Superintendent Kirk Shrum explained the impact of this partnership:  “It is great to let students and families know that if they stay focused on their education and grades, we have an amazing university in UC Merced, who wants our students to learn with them.  They can look at getting started at a four-year university in our own vicinity.”

This partnership will provide a clear pathway to automatic admissions to almost all UC Merced undergraduate programs for high school juniors who meet the following criteria:

• Complete all required A-G high school courses (15 total) including 4 years of English and 3 years of math
• Possess a minimum 3.5 grade point average (GPA)
• Possess no grade less than a C in any class

“Providing this opportunity for our students who are excelling academically affords them a goal to attain postsecondary education at a University of California campus,” stated Board Trustee Dr. Randy Villegas.

 

-October 26,2022-

Low jobless rate here.

With all the jitters over the economy, you can’t complain about the local unemployment picture. Kings County just recorded its second lowest jobless rate ever.The unemployment rate in Kings County was 5.8 percent in September 2022, down from a revised 6.3 percent in August 2022, and below the year-ago estimate of 7.8 percent. It was 5.7% in May.Since 2012 – this year has been lowest.Double digit jobless numbers had been the rule over the past decade. Non-farm jobs are up 1000 year over year and farm jobs are up 200 from September 2021. Kings County’s labor force is up while those not working have dropped from 4400 to 3200.

Statewide there is a chronic labor market shortage, analysts say. California’s labor supply fell by 57,700 in September, and since February 2020, the state’s labor force has fallen by 246,000 workers, a 1.3% decline.

 
Faraday Future cuts employee wages temporarily

Faraday Future is cutting all employee salaries by 25% next month in an effort to preserve cash as the startup seeks new capital needed to launch its first electric vehicle, says Bloomberg. Employees instead will get stock.The move they say is temporary. The car maker has been promising to launch its new FF91 before year’s end, made in Hanford. About a week ago the company announced the resignation of interim CFO Becky Roof, effective immediately.

Gasoline prices head lower

Kings County gas prices have dropped 40 cents in the past week, says AAA. As of Oct 26 the lowest price for gas in Kings County was $4.54 at Fastrip in Lemoore. California’s average is down to $5.67 -27 cents lower than a week ago. Gov Newsom allowed refiners to go to winter blend early -helping to bring the price down in the state. Newsom complained this week that according to Valero’s Q3 financial report, the oil company made $2.82 billion from July to September, which is up from $463 million a year ago – an increase of more than 500%.

AAA says the national average pump price fell nine cents over the past week to hit $3.79. It has dropped daily since October 11, primarily due to lower oil prices and fewer drivers than usual fueling up.Gasoline demand remains nearly 1 million bbl lower than this date last year. If demand remains low and oil prices don’t spike, pump prices will likely keep falling.

 

Rising interest rates depress September home sales and prices

Across California, existing single-family home sales totaled 305,680 in September, down 2.5 percent from August and down 30.2 percent from September 2021.The information is according to the California Association of Realtors. Statewide, the median home price was $821,680 – down 2.1 percent from August and up 1.6 percent from September 2021.Rising interest rates have pushed home sales down for 15 straight months on a year-over-year basis. In September it was the second time in the last three months that sales dropped more than 30 percent from the year-ago level.The 30 -year fixed rate average was 6.11 percent in September, says Freddie Mac.

In Kings County the trend was better as the median price was $342,500 compared to $321,00 the month before and $320,000 in September 2021. Fresno County’s median rose as well but Tulare and Kern’s median fell month over month.

As for sales, King was down 8.9%, Tulare sales fell 12.9% compared to a year earlier. Fresno sales improved by 1.3%year over year.

Nationwide trends

Nationwide, home sales and listings in September both slumped the most on record with the exception of the early months of the pandemic as rapidly rising mortgage rates prompted both buyers and sellers to stay put, according to a new report from Redfin.The number of homes sold dropped 25% year over year while new listings fell 22%—the largest declines since May 2020 and April 2020, respectively, when the onset of the pandemic brought the housing market to a near halt.

“The U.S. housing market is at another standstill, but the driving forces are completely different from those that triggered the standstill at the start of the pandemic,” said Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao. “This time, demand is slumping due to surging mortgage rates, but prices are being propped up by inflation and a drop in the number of people putting their homes up for sale. Many Americans are staying put because they already relocated and scored a rock-bottom mortgage rate during the pandemic, so they have little incentive to move today.”