California urged not to use property taxes to balance state budget

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:44 June 15 2009]
• Comments

Financially troubled California was urged Friday by local law enforcement officials not to use property taxes to balance the state's 24-billion-dollar budget.

Lee Baca, sheriff of Los Angeles County, the biggest county in California as well as the United States, joined with police officers to ask state legislators to refrain from using the money owed to the local municipalities.

"The state should not balance their budget on the backs of local government," said Baca at a news conference. "We need to ensure, as a policy, that the state does not erode the financial integrity of cities and counties."

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he may borrow local property and gas tax revenues to close a budget shortfall that has put the state on the brink of financial collapse.

The governor may also suspend Proposition 42 payments to cities. The voter-approved measure requires that taxes on the sale of motor vehicle fuel be used for public transportation, city and county road repairs and state highway improvements.

The state government is required to repay cities -- with interest -- for the borrowed property tax revenues within three years. But no such protection exists for the Proposition 42 payments.

District Attorney Steve Cooley, Los Angeles County's top prosecutor, said that California's financial troubles have been years in the making, and it is time for state lawmakers to establish a core mission.

With the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation expected to take a 1.5-billion-dollar hit and release thousands of inmates, Cooley said public safety should be a top priority when lawmakers consider the funding policy.

Schwarzenegger is expected to visit Southern California later Friday to deliver an update on the state's budget. California's fiscal year starts July 1.