If you live in California, Mac Taylor watches your back. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee recently named him legislative analyst, a benign sounding title for the state’s top fiscal watchdog. Taylor, a 31-year veteran of the office, is only the fifth person to hold the position since it was created in 1941, a testament to the respect legislators place on the office.

“We make sure the Legislature” — the only part of government that can spend taxpayers’ money — “has the best information to make decisions regarding California’s fiscal future,” says Taylor. The office provides unbiased advice and analyses to legislators on fiscal issues related to state programs, and legislative and gubernatorial proposals. It’s a hard job during good times and especially harsh when California’s current budgetary situation is seemingly as dire as it was during the Great Depression.

“We have a $40 billion shortfall to address,” Taylor explains. “Imagine if a family’s income was cut by 40 percent — how would they make it? Just like a household, the state finds ways to cut expenses, defer some expenses, tap into reserves — you do what you can to bring things back into balance.”

The analyst’s office recommends reductions in state programs. That’s very difficult to do, he says. “No one likes to take away benefits from people, but tough choices are what budgets are about.”

Taylor caught the government bug at UCR as a political science major, studying under Ron Loveradge, associate professor and longtime mayor of Riverside. He credits Loveridge not only with pointing him to internships in Sacramento and later for encouraging him to study public policy but for introducing him to his future wife, Sherry, a fellow UCR student whom he met in Loveridge’s living room.