AgdaPkt 2004-06-21 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

`�., �4 , s AGGREGATEPROPOSALfrom page1 ••••••••••••••••••••••••....••••... In doing so they expressed an interest in sought goal of achieving greater stability and considering an alternative to the constitutional predictability in local government financing. Local protection measure that the League and its LO- governments would continue to be at the mercy of CAL partners had negotiated with the Governor legislative whims. Schwarzenegger, and the reform principles which local government representatives had worked This is no protection whatsoever! weeks, months and years to analyze, research, proposal Is "A Day Late And A Dollar Short" draft and negotiate among dozens, even hundreds of stakeholders. • Protecting local government revenues With Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg chairing, `in aggregate' provides no protection at all. It the committee assigned to the Legislative Analyst means that the state retains control over local the task of writing in one day a new constitutional government resources, and the state would be protection measure for local government revenue free to continue manipulating funding sources for that protects the "aggregate" amount of local individual local govemments. An approach that government revenues, but permits the legislature keeps the state in charge of the purse strings fails to move revenue around among local government to provide the predictability and stability that is jurisdictions. The proposal is one that was origi- needed at the local level. nally proposed in conceptual form by the Legisla- tive Analyst's Office (LAO) in their review and • Protection of aggregate revenues analvsis, (www.lao.ca.qov), of the Governor's May could result in a significant loss of future Revision of the budget. revenues for local governments. History shows that allowing continued state legislative The idea surfaced again on Thursday in a control of the aggregate amounts of property tax, Capitol news conference called by only three sales tax and remaining VLF will inevitably lead to legislators (Steinberg, Torlakson and Ducheny), the state legislature securing for the state the one city official, one county o�cial, and a handful benefits of the most stable revenue sources and of housing and environmental groups. Ignoring the forcing local governments to rely on the least support of thousands of other local officials and stable ones. Protection of aqqreqate revenues. as speaking as three of the 120 state legislators, they a result, could result in a siqnificant loss of future called for retaining the ability of the legislature to revenues for local qovernments. manipulate local revenue sources in the future while providing some degree of overall protection. • "Aggregate" protection of local rev- enues may actually decrease fiscal incentives By the end of the day Thursday the LAO had for new housing. Under the "aggregate" revenue produced a one page conceptual description of proposal, local governments would presumably be the proposal and indicated they had asked the assured of some level of revenue each year with a Legislative Counsel to draft the proposal in bill guaranteed revenue growth factor. This could form. have the ironic effect of actually eliminating any connection whatsoever between the approval of League Concerns new housing land uses and the resulting revenues received by local governments. It is important to This last-minute suggested approach is understand that when the VLF backfill—property disturbingly similar to the current dysfunctional tax swap in the Local Government Agreement is state-local finance system that permits the state fully implemented, cities on a statewide basis will legislature to manipulate local government funding receive more of their general revenues from to accomplish state purposes — whatever those property taxes than from sales taxes for the first might be. It would thwart local officials' long- time since before ProQOSition 13. This is a signifi- Continued on Page 6 Visit the League's Official Web Site--www.cacities.org PRIORITY FOCUS/PAGE 5