Posted on 12/13/2003 9:53:45 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO -- A game of political chicken under way in the Capitol has left California's cities and counties facing a fiscal disaster of historic proportions.
When the Legislature finished approving a state budget recovery plan sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week, it left one extremely important piece of business unfinished.
That is the replacement of $4 billion a year in local government revenues that were eliminated when Schwarzenegger rolled back the vehicle license fee last month.
Incredibly, when lawmakers approved measures for the March ballot calling for a $15 billion bond issue to pay off the state budget deficit and a requirement for a balanced budget from now on, they did not address the issue of how to backfill the revenue lost by cities and counties.
Local officials like Bakersfield City Manager Alan Tandy are not crying wolf when they say they will have to cut deeply into vital public services, including police and fire departments, if the backfill for the car tax is not restored quickly.
"It's not about jobs per se," said Bakersfield police chief Eric Matlock. "It's about public safety, and I don't think some people in Sacramento are getting it."
Like other city department heads, Matlock has been ordered to cut his budget by 8 percent or about $3.5 million. That equates to about 35 uniformed officers, although Matlock said he will do his best to find other savings before taking officers off the street.
That kind of story is being repeated in nearly every city and county around the state.
What's happening is a game of political chicken, with very high stakes.
Schwarzenegger wants to take the money for the backfill out of the state's general fund, its main bank account.
Democrats, primarily the state Senate's powerful leader, John Burton, say there's not enough money in the general fund to backfill local governments without making unacceptably deep cuts in other state services that are already being slashed because of the budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger and other Republicans respond that if there's too little money, it's because the Democrats and Gov. Gray Davis spent the state into near-bankruptcy over the last few years.
Burton says Schwarzenegger created the problem by rolling back the car tax. The governor shouldn't have promised voters to cut the tax without a plan to replace the revenue, they say.
Theoretically, there would be enough money in the deficit bond issue to repay local governments for a least part of their lost revenue for this year, but the two sides are too far apart on the issue to agree to that at this point.
What it all boils down to is a waiting game to see which side suffers the worst political damage in the fallout and is forced to give in or compromise.
Burton and other Democrats want city and county officials to harass the governor into raising the car tax again or finding additional revenue somewhere else.
Schwarzenegger wants them to hammer on Democrats to pass his proposal to take the money out of the general fund and cut other programs.
The standoff could be ended quickly if the two sides got together and reached an agreement, but this has the feel of a stalemate that is not near a resolution.
The betting is that the two sides will glare at each other until the Legislature returns for the resumption of its regular session in January and Schwarzenegger issues his proposed budget, spelling out how he will deal with state spending overall.
By that time, VLF payments to local governments will have stopped completely, because by law, the state must use what car tax money it has to make refunds to car owners who paid the higher tax over the past two months.
Most cities and counties will quickly run out of money and have to start laying off workers.
If there is an agreement and money is coming down the pipeline, many of them can take out short-term loans to tide them over. But that needs to happen soon.
If nothing happens in the next week or so, cities and counties are expected to sue the state over the issue.
That is unlikely to get them any money in the short term, but it could step up the pressure on state officials to do something.
Meanwhile, local officials are left to stew in frustration at how badly they -- and their residents -- are being treated.
"We don't understand how members of the Legislature could go home without addressing this problem," said Megan Taylor, an analyst for the League of California Cities.
Some taxpayer should check the city and county offices on Friday afternoon if they want to find out how "essential" some of those city and county employees are---
Davis and the Dems said the increased VLF tax was a cut in state spending. Not in those words but, they stopped sending the four billion to the locals -- thus the cut in state spending. The increased VLF tax was to go directly to the locals to replace the "cut."
Ol' Vic didn't make that clear. Surprise.
Certainly we don't need to pay the police to maintain records of the purchases of firearms by law-abiding citizens like myself. We don't need to pay the police to ensure that I haven't purchased any eleven cartridge rifle magazines. We don't need to supply bureaucrats to prove that handguns that have been generally recognized as safe for a century are still safe. And we don't need police to enforce all of the other infringements of the Second Amendment on the books.
I don't intend to support one thin dime for these tyrants until these matters are taken care of. I will certainly not support a $15 billion dollar bond issue to forge even more chains for freedom-loving people.
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