Can the State Take City Money?

With all but the legislators' pay raise Propositions going down in flames on Tuesday, the next round of maneuvering has begun.  Today's Wall Street Journal (page A3 in the printed edition) notes:

SAN FRANCISCO -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his efforts to find funds to balance the state budget, has proposed borrowing $2 billion from municipal governments over the next fiscal year, a tactic that is rankling local officials up and down the state.

Mr. Schwarzenegger is invoking a 2004 law that lets the state demand loans of 8% of property-tax revenue from cities, counties and special districts. Under the law, the state must repay the municipalities with interest within three years.

Administrators of already cash-strapped cities and counties said the loans would force even deeper cuts in services. Fewer cops and fire engines would be on the streets, they said, and parks and libraries would be closed more often. And some local governments would be forced to lay off workers to keep their budgets out of the red, they said.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposal "suggests that financing state government and state-government services are more important than these basic community services," said Chris McKenzie, executive director of the League of California Cities. "I think it's something most of the public would disagree with."

The San Mateo Daily Journal published estimates of how much money we are talking about on May 14th.  The potential loss for Burlingame is $1,170,257.  From the city web site, a link titled "Budget Update" starts with

As you are probably aware, the City of Burlingame, like many agencies, is having a challenging budget year that will continue into the 2009-2010 fiscal year which begins in July 2009. The City’s revenues have steeply declined over the last 6 months. Hotel taxes paid by individuals who rent rooms are down 11% and general sales taxes show a 15% decline. In January 2008 the City Council adjusted the current budget to remove $2.3 million of expenditures in order to balance 2008 revenues and expenditures. The shortfall for 2009-2010 is expected to be larger, namely $4.27 million.

This is an issue that is not going to be resolved quickly.  Who has constructive suggestions?

Comments

[Lorne]

http://www.repaircalifornia.org/index.php

[Stuart]

if you guys would have managed your budget properly rather than waisting it on these pointless green projects we wouldn't be whining about how Sacramneto is abusing Burlingame. But that is typical liberalism. Always playing the victim and blaming someone else for their problems.

I could manage this city ten times better than you can with one arm tied behind my back.

[Holy Roller]

Thank you for your insight.
How would you manage the City of Burlingame?

[JROC]

How about sharing services with neighboring cities? There was a proposal a few years ago to share Parks and Rec with Millbrae that yielded about $80M in savings. Seemed like a good idea then and it seems positively brilliant now. What is being done?

What steps are being taken to attract more shoppers to Burlingame? Every day there are more vacant storefronts on and around the Avenue. We need to be careful when considering fee increases that we don't discourage shoppers. The Chamber, the Broadway DIBID, the Downtown association, the hotels and a group of property owners should be called for input on how best to protect and improve our tax base.

It scares me that in our rush to close the budget gap, we will make long term choices that will hurt us in the future. We need to think smart and not panic. This mess will pass and we need to look to the long-term implication of all the proposed band aids.

[Holy Roller]

I was at the Budget meeting last night.
I was surprized and disappointed regarding Jeryy Deals comments comparing City of Burlingame trees to Fire Services.
Jerry Deal brings nothing to the forum at all. Sound bites and NO content.
He had an opportunity to ask the Fire Chief why 39 Firefighters, 5 ENGINES,5 Policemen, 6 Paramedics, were needed to put out a "relatively" small fire on Dufferin Dr. 2-3 weeks ago.
The way the Burlingame Fire Dept was portrayed at the meeting (falling on their sword) you would come away believing houses, business, schools are burning to the ground daily. There is absolutely no reason how the cuts they came up could be considered a sacrifice.
Why did Jerry Deal not ask this question or comment?
He comes off like he knows the why/how services are provided in our Town.
Jerry Deal is only here to feed off the Public Trough for his personal gain.
I believe there is one other member on Council at that trough as well.

[commuter]

Lorne has a point on the whole green stuff. I think Nagel has gone off the deep end on this stuff but she's not alone. Did anyone see the article in the Examiner today?

Coutny explores a bright idea is the title. The county wants to invest $3.3 MILLION to put solar on the county center in Redwood city. The idea is to save $65,000 a year on electricity. So we will break even in just over 50 YEARS. And Mark Church who lives in Burlingame is a county supe who thinks this is a GOOD idea. No wonder were broke.

[Cinderella]

Comuputer and Holy roller - run for office.

If you think you can do better at not feeding at the public green trough, do it.

[Disgusted with Government]

Trolley or no trolley, Easton library at 2 or 5. . . all this talk of small little savings here and there is ridiculous. It's like putting a finger in the dike when the dike is about to explode. The city, county and state are never going to dig themselves out of the oversized and underfunded pension liabilities they have created until they renegotiate those pension contracts and end the 90% plus at 50 years of age. Check out this website and type in Burlingame for the employer if you want to know what the size of these 90% pensions looks like. And, of course, these pensions go up with inflation (unlike your 401K). These numbers also do not reflect the value of the health insurance that each of these pensioners is receiving. www.californiapensionreform.com/calpers

[Mr. Slate]

Political Kryptonite. That really is the great big elephant sitting in the corner and everyone is looking the other way. Sadly, I don't see that being addressed anytime soon. The unions still have too much influence on our local elections and candidates are afraid to even bring this up. Even the UAW made concessions to get through the hard times.

[Disgusted with Government]

Of course the UAW made concessions -- because if they had not made those concessions the companies would have declared bankruptcy and they either would have no jobs or their packages would have been renegotiated, with possibly worse terms, in bankruptcy court (think United Airlines and any number of other companies). But the firefighters union is trying to pass a bill in Sacramento that would prevent cities from being able to declare bankruptcy! Isn't that lovely? Every company in America can go bankrupt, but our governments can't -- they'll just keep asking for more tax dollars from our bankrupt companies and their employees. Everyone needs to write Senator Yee and Representative Hill and tell them both that if they vote for that bill they can kiss their cushy government jobs goodbye!

(Google Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility - one proposal to save money is to postpone retirement contributions for one year. In other words, retire at 51 years of age, rather than 50. This would save 5 billion dollars per year. Gee, think of the money that could be saved if government employees retired at 55 or 60. Meanwhile, you and I, if we see any social security at all, will see it at 65 or 67. )

[joe]

Here is an edited down excerpt from today's San Mateo Daily Journal on the next budget shoe to drop:

Seventeen state parks in San Mateo County are threatened for closure due to California’s financial crisis. The park system receives about $150 million from the state’s general fund and the public could be barred from 223 of the state’s 279 parks, according to park officials.

County Supervisor Rich Gordon represents coastal communities where many of the state parks are slated to be closed. “It’s unclear whether the state will stop providing staff for the parks or just padlock them,” he said. State park closures will also put more pressure on county parks, Gordon said.

And the county is not prepared to absorb any more visitors, said David Holland, San Mateo County Parks director. Holland’s department is understaffed by 40 percent, he said.
“We’ve got staff to open the gates in the morning and close them at night, but that’s about it,” he said. “If you close the gates, people will park somewhere else creating potential traffic problems. If you lock the bathrooms, people will still need to go and that will create unsanitary conditions,” San Mateo County Parks Foundation Executive Director Julia Bott said.

The responsibility to clean up these messes and deal with traffic problems will fall on someone’s shoulders, she said, and those shoulders will likely be local government agencies.

[Joanne]

Sounds almost like we should just close everything and start over.

[Holy Roller]

I agree Joe.
Lets see where the chips fall.
Respond only enough to clean up a mess.
Move on.
Once people feel the impact of not funding valuable resources,they/we will decide what to do.
I believe that closing parks is the first step in "shaking the tree".

[Buck Umbehant]

cut the salaries of the state bigwigs in half and putit back into the statebudget.