Start a ScholarShare savings account for the new year
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer urged California parents and
families to give their children the gift of a higher education this
holiday season by starting a ScholarShare college savings plan.
”
The holiday season is the perfect time for parents, grandparents
and other family members to help the children in their life save
for college,
”
Lockyer said, in a press release.
”
With recently lowered fees, ScholarShare is a great holiday
gift. And revisiting college savings goals is a great resolution
for the New Year. In today’s economy, a college degree has become
even more vital to obtaining a good job and successful future.
”
Start a ScholarShare savings account for the new year
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer urged California parents and families to give their children the gift of a higher education this holiday season by starting a ScholarShare college savings plan.
“The holiday season is the perfect time for parents, grandparents and other family members to help the children in their life save for college,” Lockyer said, in a press release. “With recently lowered fees, ScholarShare is a great holiday gift. And revisiting college savings goals is a great resolution for the New Year. In today’s economy, a college degree has become even more vital to obtaining a good job and successful future.”
ScholarShare, the state’s 529 college savings plan, enables Californians to save for college by putting money in tax-advantaged investments. After-tax contributions allow earnings to grow tax-deferred, and disbursements, when used for tuition and other qualified expenses, are federal and state tax-free.
“Thinking about affording college for my three young children can be worrisome,” said Jose Gomez, a Southern California parent who uses ScholarShare to save for his children’s future college education. “The best thing a parent can do is to start saving as early as possible and remain committed to saving. Even making small contributions each month adds up and can make a difference when it comes time to pay those bills. ScholarShare is the perfect tool to accomplish this task and with the new lower fees, each dollar I save goes even further.”
ScholarShare also has reduced by up to 50 percent program management fees paid by parents and families, giving them more value for each dollar they invest in their children’s ScholarShare account and making it one of the lowest-cost plans in the country.
“The fee reductions make ScholarShare an attractive option for any college savings investor,” said Andrea Feirstein, a nationally recognized expert in the 529 college savings market and an advisor to ScholarShare. “Even a non-California investor may find it hard to pass-up the savings from these fee reductions solely for state tax benefits in their home state’s plan.”
Accounts may be opened online with as little as $50, or $15 when combined with regular investments of at least $15 per month. ScholarShare has no annual fee, no income limit and offers a high maximum contribution limit of $320,000. The program currently holds more than $3.2 billion with more than 255,000 ScholarShare accounts opened since inception.
Lockyer is chair of the ScholarShare Investment Board, which sets investment policies and oversees all activities of ScholarShare. For more information, visit www.treasurer.ca.gov/scholarshare.
The ScholarShare College Savings Plan is administered by the ScholarShare Investment Board (SIB), an agency of the State of California. Fidelity Investments serves as ScholarShare’s investment manager. The money deposited into ScholarShare accounts is not guaranteed by the SIB, Fidelity Investments, or the state or federal government. Additionally, none of these entities guarantee ScholarShare account holders will earn a return on their investment.
Graniterock wins quality in construction award
The National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) informed Graniterock’s Pavex Construction Division, that the Fremont Asphalt Overlay project is the winner of the “Quality in Construction Award” for 2009. Pavex will be honored at NAPA’s 55th Annual Meeting in mid-January.
This project was one of many federal stimulus jobs bidding during this special paving season, and was scheduled around several other city and county overlay jobs. The job called for a very special new mix design. The mix was a 1/2″ Rubberized Hot Mix Asphalt (RHMA) with unusually difficult design standards. Specifically, the VMA (Voids in Mineral Aggregate) and compaction requirements exceeded that of the new Caltrans Section 39.
The scope of work included more than 40,000 tons of RHMA and Hot Mix Asphalt placed during the day on various streets within the city. Operations required daily coordination of heavy traffic as well as pedestrians through the work area. This complicated the work because of the large number of trucks involved in multiple operations for grinding, base repair, AC (Asphaltic Concrete) leveling, cement stabilization, street reconstruction, and RHMA overlay on the same day.
Through extensive planning, constant, diligent quality control, the ability to control material from the quarry to the final warranty, Graniterock’s Pavex Construction Division completed a job that is certainly worthy of the award but more importantly garners the approval of the motoring public. The final paving rides very smoothly.
The National Asphalt Pavement Association is the only association that exclusively represents the interests of the Hot Mix Asphalt producer/contractor on the national level with Congress, government agencies, and other national trade and business organizations. NAPA supports an active research program designed to improve the quality of HMA pavements and paving techniques used in the construction of roads, highways, parking lots, airports and environmental and recreational facilities. The Association, which counts more than 800 companies among its Members, was founded in 1955.
Graniterock has been headquartered in Watsonville, California, since its founding in 1900. The Company’s employees work in branch locations in South San Francisco, Redwood City, San Jose, Salinas, Monterey, Oakland, Watsonville, Felton, Cupertino, and Santa Cruz. Graniterock supplies construction materials including ready-mix concrete, hot mix asphalt, building materials, landscaping supplies, rock, sand and gravel. The Company’s Pavex Construction Division is a significant regional heavy engineering contractor building roadways, airports and private commercial and residential projects. Graniterock received the 1992 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the 1994 Governor’s Golden State Quality Award.
VTA service changes begin Jan. 11
SAN JOSE – Faced with reduced revenues due to the recession and the elimination of the state transit funding, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) will implement service reductions beginning January 11.
Individuals needing information on how the service reductions will impact them can either visit the Web site www.vta.org/servicereductions or contact VTA Customer Service at 408-321-2300.
To help riders prepare for the transition, VTA has conducted an extensive outreach campaign that includes flyers and signs in buses and light rail vehicles, dedicated Web pages, ads, news releases, and public presentations.
In the field, self-service route map racks will be at key transit centers throughout the county, from Palo Alto to Gilroy. VTA staff working as ambassadors will supplement that effort, with an emphasis on staffing locations where significant service changes are taking place, such as the Great Mall Transit Center in Milpitas and the Alum Rock and Eastridge transit centers in San Jose. Roving ambassadors will also be available, visiting other key transit locations and lending assistance where needed.
           VTA’s service reductions Web page offers written descriptions of the changes to the routes, new route maps and a trip planner that provides information based on the schedules that will be in place Jan. 11. VTA’s Customer Service Center is able to provide foreign language assistance to callers, as well as assistance to hearing impaired individuals and VTA’s Web site is designed to be fully accessible to visually impaired individuals.
           Only two routes will be entirely discontinued on Jan. 11; Line 33 in Milpitas and Line 43 in east San Jose. Two others, Route 76 and the River Oaks Shuttle, are slated to be shut down later this year.
The service reduction has been carefully organized by VTA service planners to impact as few individuals as possible. Many of the route changes involve eliminating an early morning or late night run on a route, although some routes will experience significant changes to midday weekday and weekend service.
Many other transit agencies in the region are facing similar service cuts. In October, VTA Board of Directors authorized a revised service reduction plan to fill a budget shortfall. The Board adopted a revised service reduction plan that incorporated public comments and input from VTA Advisory Committees. VTA’s revised service reduction plan consists of, on average, an 8 percent reduction in bus service and a 6.5 percent reduction in light rail service.
For additional information please contact VTA’s Customer Service Center at 408-321-2300, TTY for the hearing-impaired only, 408-321-2330. Please log onto and click on the blue envelope icon to sign-up for immediate VTA bus/light rail email updates.
