City's piggy bank may crack under state's hammer
BY GRETCHEN WENNER, Californian staff writer gwenner@bakersfield.com
There's good reason for California's local governments to cringe: Sacramento's long arm keeps reaching for their piggy banks.
In Bakersfield, the latest worry for city officials is the possible loss of $4.8 million in gas-tax funds.
That's on top of a $6.5 million hit to property tax revenues the state is expected to borrow in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Bakersfield had been expecting to get more than $6 million from its share of the 18-cents-a-gallon state gasoline tax. The money is used for routine street maintenance and as a match for federal and state road dollars.
"If they follow through with this it would be devastating!" Alan Tandy, Bakersfield's city manager, wrote in a note to the city council Friday. The city's total budget for the next fiscal year is about $596 million.
Two gas-tax proposals are currently floating around the state capital, said Dana Curry, an analyst with the state Legislative Analyst's Office in Sacramento.
A state Department of Finance plan would snag about $986 million from cities and counties in the next fiscal year, she said, and about $750 million annually thereafter. Those funds would be taken, not borrowed. (The finance department's spokesman couldn't be reached by press time Monday.)
The second proposal is from the legislative analyst's office. It suggests a one-time move allowing the state keep more than $1 billion slated for cities and counties in the next fiscal year. Legislators would later decide whether the funds were a loan.
Curry said her office doesn't know when state lawmakers will make a decision on either proposal.
Cities around the Golden State are worried as the budget drama plays out in Sacramento.
The League of California Cities recently launched a Web site -- www.SaveYourCity.net -- for municipalities to organize a protest of Sacramento's raid on local coffers.
Bakersfield is among many of California's 480 cities that, at the league's urging, have declared "severe fiscal hardship," a mostly symbolic gesture.
Rhonda Smiley, spokeswoman for the city manager's office, said state budget uncertainty means Bakersfield's own fiscal plan will be haunted by question marks when councilmembers adopt it June 24 .
"We expect to be in a continual mode of budget adjustments during the next fiscal year," she said.
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