June Casagrande
City officials are offering mixed reactions to Thursday's
announcement that the governor will invoke emergency powers to pay
cities and counties for lost car-tax dollars. But city leaders agree
that local governments aren't out of the woods yet.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday announced that he would use
emergency powers to pay cities and counties millions that they have
lost in car tax revenues.
The round of payments to local governments will come from about
$150 million in budget cuts to a variety of programs, including the
two state university systems, and from closing a migrant farm worker
housing facility, among other things.
"At this point, we just can't know how much we're going to get,"
Newport Beach Administrative Services Director Dennis Danner said.
"Even if this turns out the way we hope, there's no way of knowing
what we can hope for in the next fiscal year."
Danner reported to the Newport City Council last week that the
state crunch had touched the city on more fronts than just the
vehicle license fee. City leaders were surprised when they got
$50,000 less than expected from the county in the form of the
Homeowners Exemption Property Tax Relief. Those funds flow from the
state to the counties, which in turn pass the money along to the
cities on a quarterly basis.
Instead of the roughly $75,000 the city expected, it got about
$25,000 and an e-mail from county staff saying that the state hadn't
paid the county the full amount. When the state paid up, the county
would pass it along, it said.
Thursday's move by the governor should correct this problem, as
well. A spokesman for the office of county Auditor-Controller David
Sundstrom said that county staff have been talking with state
officials, who assured them that the homeowner tax money would be
paid in full to the county. The county expects to pay the cities the
rest of their quarterly amount on Jan. 9.
Costa Mesa Assistant City Manager Anne Schultz said that, at least
in the short term, the governor's announcement is welcome news.
Costa Mesa stood to lose about $4.7 million in vehicle license
fees this year after Sacramento reversed a tripling of the tax.
Newport Beach would have lost about $2.9 million.
"We're pleased at this point," Schultz said. "We're still
concerned about the whole issue of revenues for cities, because every
time the state gets into a budget crunch, they take it from us."
Vehicle license fees are taxes collected by the state on behalf of
