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SacBee editorial: Budget deadlock stalls levee repairs

Posted by: Maven on July 10, 2009 at 7:19 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this editorial:

Massive program cuts, state worker salary reductions and IOUs aren’t the only consequences of California’s budget stalemate. The deadlock is also preventing the state from selling bonds needed to fund initiatives that have already been approved by voters.

A case in point is Proposition 1E, passed overwhelmingly in November 2006, which provided $4 billion for Delta levee repairs and Central Valley flood control. In normal times, the levee repair projects that 1E was written to finance wouldn’t be scrambling for funding. But as an article in last Friday’s Bee pointed out, times are as unusual on the Delta levees as they are in the rest of the state.

New projects have stalled for lack of financing. Old projects, financed by private levee districts on the understanding that the state would reimburse half the costs, have had to wait five months longer than usual for reimbursements.

This may come as a surprise to those who recall the hoopla surrounding the state’s sale of about $13 billion in infrastructure bonds last March and April. The bond sale reportedly allowed the state to restart about 7,000 infrastructure projects that had been frozen by the 2008 cash crunch – including making good on what was owed for completed Delta levee repairs. But new levee repair projects were all but shut out of that money.

Read the rest of this editorial from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

July 10, 2009 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Levees

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