Don Saylor: State must respect, not raid, local funds

By Don Saylor - Special to The Bee

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The budget revision approved by the Legislature last week is a travesty for California's cities and blatantly ignores the state constitution. State lawmakers once again resorted to gimmickry to give the appearance of a sound fiscal plan for California instead of making responsible choices to actually balance the budget. It's a budget that would make financial fraudster Bernie Madoff proud – and that's nothing to celebrate.

Transparency is lacking in this budget proposal. The Big Five held secret meetings, unlike our City Council, which held all of our budget discussions in public. In a difficult year, we cut about 10 percent of our budget to make it work. And now that the state is poised to seize $1.1 million in gas tax, $2.5 million of redevelopment funds and borrow $1.3 million in property taxes from Davis, we're going to have to make deeper cuts. Public safety officers will be cut, road conditions will worsen and important redevelopment projects designed to stimulate our economy will falter. As vice mayor of Davis, I just represented my community at a summit of more than 500 city, county and school officials who gathered together because they are fed up with the state's continual lack of respect for local revenues. Local revenues are supposed to support local services, not help bail the state out of its budget mess at the expense of our residents.

There is no more important question facing us today than how to bring about reforms that will restore strength to California's weakened fiscal and governance systems. Local control of local resources is key.

Don Saylor is vice mayor of the city of Davis.