The sale and leaseback of state buildings is a bad budget practice, according to Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor. In an April 27 report, the analyst states, "After taking into account the one-time revenue that the state would receive in the first year and converting the future costs into today's dollars, we estimate the transaction would cost the state between $600 million and $1.5 billion."
As part of last year's budget deal, ABX4 22 (Evans) authorized the sale and leaseback of 11 state buildings, including the Franchise Tax Board complex.
According to The Sacramento Bee, the firm hired by the state to broker the deal said that because the state had received multiple bids over $2 billion for the whole package, the state plans to sell the package of buildings to one buyer.
At an April 28 hearing by the Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, both Democrats and Republicans voiced concern about the proposed sale. Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, chair of the committee, said, "I'm termed out this year like the governor, but I don't want to saddle future legislators and taxpayers with the cost of a stupid decision we make today."
Assemblyman Bill Emmerson said the Legislature should have final say over sales of buildings. (Sources: Legislative Analyst report "Should the State Sell Its Office Buildings?" of April 27 and The Sacramento Bee, April 28.)
(Cal-Tax: This is one of the more questionable budget gimmicks cooked up by the Legislature and Department of Finance last year, and it worsens the structural deficit in the future. This sale provides for one-time revenue that will not reoccur in the next budget year, causing a structural deficit. Even worse, the state will be obligated to pay big-time lease payments in the future that it otherwise would not have to pay. It works this way: If the state nets $1.5 billion for this year's budget, it will have to find that $1.5 billion somewhere else to continue the same level of spending next year. In addition, it will have to find an unknown additional amount to make the lease payments.)
April Tax Collections
Trail Last Year's Figure. State
Controller John Chiang reported that through April 29, the Franchise Tax Board
has collected $6.91 billion in personal income tax revenue in April, trailing
the $7.26 billion collected during the same period last year.
The controller's
report is updated on his website as tax
returns are processed.
Year-to-date
personal income tax revenues, as of April 29, totaled $36.2 billion. At the
same time last year, year-to-date revenues totaled $37.5 billion.
(Cal-Tax: The
controller's comparison of collections for the first 10 months of the current
fiscal year vs. the first 10 months of the previous fiscal year raises an
interesting issue. For 2008-09, the big February 2009 tax increase is reflected
in the amount collected for only a month or two of higher withholding and
estimated payments. In 2009-10, the massive income tax increase was in effect
for all 10 months. Astonishingly, the 2008-09 total,
which does not include much revenue from the tax increase, is higher than the
2009-10 figure that does include revenue from the tax hike.)
Cal-TaxReports, May 3, 2010
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