On a roll
La Presidente speaks
UCSB baseball wins its sixth straight game by completing a sweep of UCSD - A3
Maria Cabrera talks about her love of dance and Old Spanish Days - B1
Our 166th Year
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MON DAY, A PR I L 18 , 2 02 2
SpaceX rocket launched from Vandenberg SFB By KATHERINE ZEHNDER NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
At 6:13 aMmM on Sunday, a National Reconnaissance Office mission was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The launch, originally scheduled for Friday, was delayed twice. It was postponed to Saturday morning, then delayed again to Sunday. The launch successfully took place Sunday morning. After stage separations took place, the first stage successfully landed and was seen on
the webcast. It was the 114th overall successful recovery of a first stage booster. The landing of the second stage was not broadcast at the request of the customer, but it successfully landed for the second consecutive time. “Today the Western Range teamed with the National Reconnaissance Office to deliver a critical national security payload, which will provide our warfighters and decision-makers with vital intelligence data. This is the 20th NRO launch from the Western Range since 1996 and I’m proud of both the team today and the long-standing and strong partnership with the NRO. Go
NROL-85!” said Col. Rob Long, Space Launch Delta 30 commander. “NROL-85 is the first NRO mission to reuse a SpaceX rocket booster. NROL87, launched only two months earlier, was the first NRO launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket intended to be reused for a future mission,” according to a news release from Vandenberg. NROL-85 is the second Falcon 9 Launch procured through the National Security Space Launch contract that launched from the Western Range. The mission’s first stage returned to land on Please see LAUNCH on A2
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a National Reconnaissance Office mission (NROL-85) launches from Space Launch Complex-4 East at 6:13 a.m. Sunday at Vandenberg Space Force Base. MICHAEL PETERSON / U.S. SPACE FORCE
As tax deadline arrives, IRS still has huge backlog
Fun at the beach
By CASEY HARPER THE CENTER SQUARE
DAVE MASON / NEWS-PRESS
Adults and kids enjoy their visit to the beach below Ellwood Mesa in Goleta.
Supervisors to consider Cate School revenue obligations By KAITLYN SCHALLHORN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Tuesday and consider California Enterprise Development Authority revenue obligations for Cate School. Founded in 1910, Cate School is a nonprofit college preparatory boarding school in Carpinteria. It has nearly 300 students, and most of them are boarding students. The Santa Barbara County Debt Advisory Committee has already recommended approval of the school’s CEDA request, which would be used for projects associated with its campus. Additionally Tuesday, the board will receive a presentation on Animal Services City and Jurisdictional Contract Fee Scenarios. Tuesday’s meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and will be held both virtually and in person at Joseph Centeno Betteravia Government Administration Building at 511 E. Lakeside Pkwy. in Santa Maria. The meeting can be viewed online at countyofsb.org/ce/ csbtv/livestream.sbc or www.youtube.com/user/CSBTV20. email: kschallhorn@newspress.com
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A request by Cate School will be discussed at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors story.
(The Center Square) – The last weekend for Americans to file their taxes before the Monday deadline is here, but the Internal Revenue Service still faces major backlogs for individual and business filings. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig testified before Congress last month, promising to clear through the 20 million unprocessed 2021 tax returns by the end of 2022. He cited an array of reasons for the backlog, including “new responsibilities,” delays in modernization and uncertainty about funding that slows down hiring. “When we are confronted with long-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs), we typically freeze nearly all external hiring,” he said. “We take this action to ensure we have funds to pay all employees, including any applicable pay raises. Last fall, we increased staffing in our Wage & Investment Division (W&I) despite the CR, hiring at risk without the funding in place to support these positions, but assuming future resources would be provided by the eventual enactment of the FY2022 appropriation, to help address our inventory.” Observers say President Joe Biden’s trillions of dollars in social spending passed through Congress overwhelmed the IRS last year. The agency was tasked with distributing and tracking much of the money, such as the stimulus payments and the monthly child tax credit to qualifying families. “The problems the IRS is having primarily stems from Congress putting the responsibilities for distributing pandemic-era social programs on an agency that’s supposed to exist for revenue collection, not benefit administration,” said Alex Muresianu, a tax expert at the Tax Foundation. “The effects of that disconnect only got worse during the pandemic: the various relief measures (CARES, the appropriations law in early 2020, ARP) increased the IRS’s administrative responsibilities enormously, making them responsible for distributing hundreds of billions of additional dollars. “And while they did receive a budget increase to try and make that process smoother, it’s tough
to upgrade their capacity that quickly,” he added. Mr. Rettig’s testimony seemed to back up this idea at least in part with several references to the increased workload for the agency. “We continue to balance multiple unprecedented demands, including starting the filing season as well as continuing to work on important new tax provisions,” Mr. Rettig said. “And we remain focused on numerous taxpayer-related issues and have pursued innovative ideas and processes not previously deployed by the IRS in an effort to make improvements to the current inventory and provide meaningful taxpayer services.” Republicans have blasted the Biden administration for these backlogs, saying they should have been corrected by now. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the IRS pointing to “COVID-19 related telework policies” allowing most IRS employees to work remotely as well as outdated software. “For many Americans, their tax refund can equal six weeks of take-home income,” the letter said. “The volume of tax returns and refunds completed each year shows the far-reaching impact that processing delays could have for the average American. Processed returns are also essential for those who may be entitled to apply for other government benefits such as loans administered by the U.S. Small Business Administration. It is therefore imperative that the IRS take steps to mitigate any processing delays.” The IRS issued an “urgent reminder” at the beginning of this year telling Americans to file electronically “to help speed refunds” this year. Mr. Rettig published an op-ed in Yahoo News last month echoing that tone. “As the IRS begins this tax season, it continues to face enormous challenges. Our dedicated workforce has done everything it can to prepare for filing day on April 18,” he wrote. “Today, millions of people are still waiting for prior years’ returns to be processed, and refund checks to arrive in the mail, while preparing for their upcoming tax filing. While we can’t immediately solve these significant issues, our employees are doing everything they can, and I am committed to returning to normal inventory levels before next year.”
Sudoku................. B3 Sports ................A3-4 Weather................ A4
Saturday’s SUPER LOTTO: 12-13-14-25-35 Mega: 13
Sunday’s DAILY 4: 9-0-4-3
Friday’s MEGA MILLIONS: 4-17-20-46-64 Mega: 23
Sunday’s FANTASY 5: 22-26-29-34-38
Sunday’s DAILY DERBY: 10-06-03 Time: 1:46.36
Saturday’s POWERBALL: 15-21-32-62-65 Meganumber: 26
Sunday’s DAILY 3: 2-6-9 / Midday 4-1-1