CA: Backfill the car tax? Not so fast

Several days after he signed an executive order rolling back the car tax, which funds city and county services, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met with a group of mayors from around California and told them exactly what they wanted to hear, a special talent of his. The state will not leave them in the lurch, the governor said. It will backfill the $4.2 billion a year he had just snatched away from cities and counties.

According to recently released Census Bureau data, California has the lowest share of state government employees per 10,000 of population of any state, only 73.3 percent of the national average

An interesting statistic if true. But a red herring.

California's problems revolve around the entitlement of classes to a greater degree than a bloated employee budget.There is no doubt that California could substantially reduce it's spending by reducing salaries and especially benefits to most of it's employees, active and retired, but the budget crisis is driven by the vast new numbers of it's citzens that are recently, legally entitled to the forced largess of the tax payer.

No better example exists than the consequences of Prop 98 in the current crisis. California public school children are now entitled to a large posrtion of the general fund regardless of need or suitability.

First of all, VLF is County revenue. It is personal property tax. When it was originally cut by the State, it was to pass through State budget surplus as a discount to car owners. The State then backfilled the County for the revenue it took. By reducing the VLF and not backfilling the County, the State takes 25% of its General Fund Revenue (17% of city.)

In our preliminary budget in June, we started slashing the budget to meet increased workers comp., rsk management and Cal PERS (union) obligations. Those had increased $5,314,015 over the prior year. This was about a 12% cut for all departments. Discretionary programs, such as economic development and tourism were slashed by half or eliminated. A hard freeze on hiring was continued and all out of County travel must be approved by the Board of Supervisosrs. (Some programs, such as $680,000 IHSS -In Home Social Services for the elderly and disabled are State mandated and cannot be cut.)

In August, the County lost $1 million in revenue from the VLF pass through lag of three months. In September, it lost $500,000 in revenue from the rural crime bill. By final budget, the loss in revenue had climbed to an additional two million over the preliminary budget in June.

Out of a prliminary General fund budget of $30,132,444 we had cut to $28,085,698.19 using $2,570,996 of carry over and reserves. (This means our Gnereal Fund revenue is currently at $25,623,564.)

Loss of VLF backfill would mean a revenue of about $19,217,673. It would mean that since June, we had to cut 36% of our budget or find other sources to meet expenditures.

What local services are in the General fund? - sheriff, D.A., fire, grand jury, library, animal control, juvenile hall, probation, public defender, homicide, law library, county courts, elections, tax collector, assessor, auditor, county clerk, recorder, administration, building dept., planning, airports, veterans services, Board of Supervisors, county museum, aid to indigents, indigent ambulance and medical care, state correctional school, and wards of the court.

These are the local services and functions that would need to be cut. Obviously, some such as wards of the court, homicide etc. are not entirely controllable, so cuts tend to hit service and administration staff.

We are a large rural county geographically (6,600 sq. miles) but not large in population. We already operate at bare bones. For instance, as an elected County official, I make less than minimum wage, work at my dining room table on my own computer, do not have secretarial services and use my own car - which has 198,000 miles on it.

When I say that elminating VLF backfill is not the answer, I truly believe that.

Damn,, thanks for that prespective and info on backfill. So much for the hopes that the Recall could serve as blowback against the empire of the socialists amongst us.

talk about bare bones... how many skinny legislators and bureaucrats and bureaucracies do you see out there?

Here in Santa Clara county, preparations for cuts are in the works. This once plum of a location will soon be full of wailing whining folks too while the high mucky mucks pull in 6 digit salaries and perks galore. Jerks!

And San Jose's White Elephant City Center is well under way at a cost of 350 million bucks while oodles of buildings in the area sit empty. Needless to say, liberalism is blind to its own mistakes and deficiencies that even school kids can spot a mile away.

On a personal note , I have negligible income currently, my truck is 45,000 miles behind yur vehicle, I ,too, "work" on a computer on my dining room table and my wife said I am not her personal secretary or housekeeper. ;-)

Gee, maybe the cities could use more layoffs, like many of the DEADWOOD that works in the offices? Like many of the "employees" that spend more time figuring out how to use their unions to go out on stress-related leave or other such nonsense? Like when I sat in meetings of a certain city's "finance dept." and we were all encouraged to show up for city council and other meetings and told to use the mantra "this will cut our staff of much needed fireman and police officers..." Using scare tactics, as all good liberals do. Heaven forbid we cut the DEADWOOD instead!!!

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