There is an old quote that money is the mother's milk of politics. What that really means if that without money government services get sickly, and ignored too long, they die.
In California, city and county government actually deliver most services like public safety, social services, parks and libraries . However, these local governments do not have complete control over the services they must provide not can local government raise all the revenue needed to pay for the services. That revenue comes largely from federal and state programs and those fiscal policy decisions are made by the US federal government and by the State of California. California's state government is deadlocked over finance and tax policy, leaving cities and counties to innovate, patch, beg, borrow or defer problems to future years. Local governments have evolved a host of methods to deal with practical problems for delivering services residents expect. Among the most complex topics in California government is local government finance.
Every time a new policy directive comes down from the US or California state government, cities and counties have to adjust their service delivery plans and finances. Layer-upon-layer of program adaptation has left an extremely complex system of local government finance. News stories reduce government financial complexity to buzz words like Prop 13, realignment, subvention or ERAF. How to get past the confusion and understand the topic? Where is a newby to find out what these terms and policies actually mean?
To fill this need, the League of California Cities has assembled a combination tutorial, almanac, encyclopedia, and weblink directory to useful policy reports and press coverage. Its name says it all: The California Local Government Finance Almanac. It is updated yearly, with a long print backfile, but now the Almanac is on the Web.
In the Almanac you will find introductory primers, ERAF, overviews of Prop 13 and Prop 218,
triple flips & realignment , Vehicle License Fee (VLF) revenue, excise taxes & developer fees, the California State Budget and how it affects local government finance, and Federal funds and ARRA recovery act money.
Beyond this the site has suggested data sources and extensive links California city to web sites. One of the best of many policy reports the Almanac has found is a PPIC study by Elisa Barbour titled State-Local Fiscal Conflicts in California: From Proposition 13 to Proposition 1A
For students of California public policy, Bibliorati gives The California Local Government Finance Almanac two thumbs up.
