Budget Cuts Now Mean Guarantees Later

We told you last week about the Governor´s revised budget plan. Now, city and county governments are starting to get a look at exactly what the plan means to them.

Debbie Olsen of the League of California Cities spoke to the Sonora City Council last night.

She reported they´d collected over a million signatures statewide for the purpose of protecting local funds in the future, however…

“The day that the League filed the 1.3 million signatures, to get… a constitutional protection initiative on the ballot, we received, in the League office, a phone call from the governor´s office asking us not to submit those petitions,” Olsen said.

Instead, the Governor´s office wanted a plan that would be good for this year´s budget and guarantee money in the future. “What this does is guarantee repayment of the VLF backfill loan, which we all thought maybe we´d never see again… and it guarantees that when the bond is repaid, a quarter-cent sales tax comes back to local government,” Olsen explained.

The League of California Cities is keeping their original plan, the Local Taxpayers and Public Safety Protection Act, on the November ballot as a backup, said Olsen.

She reported to the Sonora City Council, as the first stop on her tour of municipalities.