Officials Propose Ballot Initiative

San Jose Mercury News

January 13, 2010

By Joshua Melvin

Bay Area News Group

FOSTER CITY — Just four days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a new budget proposal that promises another year of deep cuts, Bay Area elected officials launched a campaign to get a measure on the November 2010 ballot that would stop the state from borrowing — or taking — tax money bound for local governments.

The announcement marks the beginning of a massive statewide effort by the League of California Cities to collect the nearly 700,000 registered voter signatures needed by April 15 to get the Local Taxpayer, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act on the ballot, organizers said Monday in front of the Foster City Fire Department.

If passed, the measure would prohibit state officials from borrowing property tax money as they did last year in an effort to fill the state's $42 billion budget hole. The measure also seeks to block any taking of money bound for public transit or road construction and maintenance.

"Sacramento politicians can't continue to use local funds as backfill for state budget deficits," said Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate, who was flanked at the announcement by officials from San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Organizers said the budget passed by state lawmakers last year took or borrowed $5 billion in government and transit funds from local agencies. Those take-aways, when subtracted from already recession-weakened coffers, left many cities in dire financial straits, officials said.

Doug Fry, chief of the Belmont—San Carlos Fire Department, said his department had to use about $1 million in reserves to fill a hole left by the state's borrowing of tax dollars. He said his agency will have to cut service if state lawmakers pass a budget again in the coming years that borrows from locals.

"It'll be brown outs," he said referring to temporary fire station closures, "or cuts and possibly layoffs."

Jim Gleich, deputy general manager of AC Transit, said public transportation agencies are also battling to keep the state out of their finances. The California Transit Association recently won a lawsuit over $3.5 billion in funding the state took illegally and used for other purposes, he said. But the budget proposal released last Friday, which takes aim at the roughly $20 billion deficit that the state faces for next year, could mean more raids from Sacramento.

"The budget filed this past week is literally immoral," he said. "It takes California out of the public transit business."