AB 936 - Redevelopment: Debt Forgiveness
CPF-sponsred legislation that gives the public new tools to hold local redevelopment agencies accountable has been signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Assemblyman Ben Hueso (D - Chula Vista) introduced AB 936 to bring transparency to the decision making processes governing California's community redevelopment agencies. These costly and often-corrupt agencies divert over $5 billion a year in property taxes into developer projects at the expense of core services like schools, public safety and care for the needy.
Redevelopment agencies annually divert 12 percent of all property taxes statewide, while state and local budgets are in a fiscal meltdown. These precious property tax dollars are skimmed from local governments that provide vital services -- such as fire districts-- and, in doing, so create a requirement that the State, with its ever-shrinking revenues, provide a backfill.
These same RDA's, through the use of creative budgeting tactics or, in some cases, 11th hour administrative actions, avoid full disclosure of funding decisions benefitting their RDAs and in turn, their citizens have been kept in the dark as to the impact of these decisions on the city's mission to fund core local services.
The best solution is to eliminate RDAs. Short of that, the only way to restore a sense of integrity and re-build the public's trust in this regard is to ensure an open process when RDA-related budgeting.
AB 936 does this by requiring any matter on a public agency's meeting agenda that would result in forgiving a loan, advance, or indebtedness of a redevelopment agency be made public at a meeting -- and not as an consent item -- at least two weeks before being voted on by that agency's governing body.
This bill further requires a chief financial official be present at such a meeting to provide the status of the financial health of the agency's funds, as well as demonstrate how the agency is able to effectively continue providing services to the public absent the repayment of the debt proposed to be forgiven and the public interest in doing so.
This bill was introduced on February 18th, 2011. This bill was referred to the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee and passed unanimously on April 27, 2011. The bill was then referred to the Assembly Local Government Committee where it passed with unanimously on May 4, 2011. The bill then passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee unanimously on May 18, 2011. The bill was then unanimously approved by the Assembly Floor on May 26, 2011. AB 936 was then approved by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee unanimously on July 6, 2011. It passed the Senate on August 15th and cleared its final Assembly vote on August 18th.
The measure was signed by Governor Brown on September 7th.
For any questions please contact our Legislative Director Amy Howard
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