Condition & Recommendations | Funding | Asset Management | Legislation | Prop 53

Condition & Recommendations

California Commission on Building for the 21st Century
Commission created in 1999 to study the state's building and infrastructure needs. The Commission's final report was issued in the spring of 2002.

California Business Roundtable: Building a Legacy for the Next Generation
California Business Roundtable 1998 report that examines California's needs for schools, highways and colleges, and concludes that there is a "$90 billion overdue bill for new public facilities" and a $33 billion need not met by existing funding sources.

California's Public Investment Gap
A 1999 report by the California Budget Project that reviews and discusses current funding methods, concluding that the state will fall $40 billion short over the next decade in meeting public construction needs, not including an estimated $15 to $25 billion shortfall for highways.

Rebuild America Coalition
Site for the national Rebuild America Coalition, a non-partisan coalition of public and private organizations seeking to promote public awareness of the need for infrastructure investment.

Water Infrastructure Network
Site for WIN, a coalition of elected officials, drinking water and wastewater service providers, health and environment administrators, engineers and others. Site includes information about organizational activities, links to related organizations and reports, notably WIN's February 2001 report, "Water Infrastructure Now."

CA Task Force on Trial Court Facilities
Created by the CA Legislature as part of the Trial Court Funding Act of 1997, the Task Force on Trial Court Facilities has representation from the judicial, executive, and legislative branches. The task force conducted a two-and-a-half year study that included on-site visits to all state court facilities and found that a significant number of California court buildings need repair, renovation, or maintenance.

ASCE's 2001 Report Card for America's Infrastructure
American Society of Civil Engineers' site that evaluates the needs for roads, bridges, schools, other infrastructure categories, and gives the nation an overall grade of D+. Concludes that $1.3 trillion is needed to bring U.S. infrastructure up to snuff.

Canadian Institute for Research and Construction
This page links directly to information on the Institute's Urban Infrastructure Rehabilitation research program, with topic areas including buried utilities, urban roads and concrete structures.

Speaker's Commission on Regionalism
This site focuses on issues related to better regional government cooperation, and includes articles on land use and planning and tax cuts vs. infrastructure funding.

America's Water Resources Challenges for the 21st Century (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Site)
Contains the "National Report on Identified Water Resources Challenges and Opportunities," plus executive summary, regional meeting notes and links to dozens of environmental/conservation groups and related government agencies.

Brookings Institution Report: Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S.
Brookings describes this as the first national study to measure the consumption of land for urbanization compared to population change for every U.S. metropolitan area. It finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the West is home to some of the densest metropolitan areas in the nation.

Rethinking Statewide Infrastructure Policies: Lessons from California and Beyond (pdf)
Study by Professor David Dowall argues that the State of California needs to rethink its approach toward infrastructure planning and finance and outlines how state-provided infrastructure could be made more efficient, cost-effective, and demand responsive.

Smart Public Investments for the California Economy: Information and Analysis for Infrastructure Planning
This 1999 report was produced by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy and commissioned by Californians and the Land as a follow-up to CCSCE's report Land Use and the California Economy. The report describes the current state of the infrastructure planning process and identifies ideas for improving how the state's infrastructure investments are selected.

Funding

Primer on Assembly Constitutional Amendment 11
The State Legislative Analyst's office reviews Assembly Constitutional Amendment 11, which will appear on the March 2004 statewide ballot, and would establish the California Twenty-First Century Infrastructure Investment Fund, a dedicated financing source for state and local infrastructure projects. The LAO provides background on state capital outlay planning and funding, explains how the measure works, and describes the measure's potential fiscal impact.

2002 California's Five Year Infrastructure Plan
In coordination with state agencies and departments, the Department of Finance compiled this five year infrastructure plan for California pursuant to AB 1473 which required the Governor to submit a five-year planning budget each year for state-owned infrastructure, as well as non-state owned infrastructure in the areas of transportation, schools, and colleges. The plan proposes spending $56 billion over the next five years.

Surface Transportation: Confronting the Backlog
Fitch recently published its special report "Surface Transportation: Confronting The Backlog".

Major Features of the 2001 California Budget
The State Legislative Analyst's Office look at the 2001-02 State Budget Act, signed July 26, 2001. Section on transportation notes that traffic congestion relief funding will be postponed two years.

Implementing the California Infrastructure Plan: 2001-2002 Budget
The State Legislative Analyst's Office look at implementation of the California Infrastructure Planning Act (AB 1473) which requires the governor to submit a five-year planning budget each year for transportation, schools, colleges and state agency buildings.

Overhauling the State's Infrastructure Planning & Financing
A 1998 report from the State Legislative Analyst's Office recommending an overhaul of the current system of infrastructure funding, in favor of an integrated statewide planning process.

Capital Outlay and Infrastructure Report (1999)
California Department of Finance Report forecasts a need for $82.2 billion in infrastructure projects (education, public safety, transportation and environmental quality) from '99-00 through 2008-09.

California Infrastructure State Revolving Fund Program
This site has information about the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank's Infrastructure State Revolving Fund (ISRF) Program, which provides low-cost loans of $250,000 to $20 million to public agencies for a variety of infrastructure projects.

Conduit Revenue Bond Financing
This site includes information on the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank's conduit revenue bond-financing program.

California Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program
Information from the California Department of Health Services about federal funding programs to repair or enhance public drinking water systems.

State Highway Account Loan Program (AB 1012)
Contains information about the State Highway Account Loan Program, whereby local governments can borrow money for qualified transportation projects.

2000 Water Bond Program
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) site that describes features of the "Safe Drinking Water, Clean Water, Watershed Protection and Flood Protection Act," the government agencies involved, implementation plans, and answers frequently-asked-questions about the program.

Office of Public School Construction Programs
This site describes OPSC programs (under California's Department of General Services), including a map-based project tracker, overview brochure, architect submittal guidelines and many more items.

Brown and Caldwell Infrastructure Funding Page
Maintained by Irvine, Calif.-based Brown and Caldwell, this site contains current information, articles and letters related to recent developments in California water infrastructure funding. Also includes links to Brown & Caldwell's newsletter, "SoCal Water Resources News."

Asset Management

Asset Management Programs (from New Zealand — formerly ALGENZ)
Site operated by Ingenium, formerly the Association of Local Government Engineers. Includes the "International Infrastructure Management Manual," revised in May 2000.

Asset Management Primer (from Australia)
A thorough discussion of asset management principles developed by the government of Victoria, Australia, and available in its entirety online at this site.

Asset Management Quality International (from Australia)
Based in Australia, this site offers articles on asset management planning and strategy, a regular newsletter, information about professional conferences, and dozens of links to related sites.

Government Accounting Standards Board Statement 34
This government-sponsored site contains a wide variety of information about GASB Statement 34, which calls for new financial reporting requirements from state and local governments.

American Public Works Association
Official site of APWA — the "resources" section includes articles such as "Asset Management for the Public Works Manager," and other information. Also on the site: news, upcoming conferences, membership information, more.

Federal Highway Administration Office of Asset Management
Official Federal Highway Administration site, giving an overview of asset management programs related to highways, bridges, etc. Includes an online version of the U.S. Department of Transportation's "Asset Management Primer," and the "Pavement Management Primer."

Brown and Caldwell's Asset Management Page
Contains a series of articles on asset management by Irvine, Calif.-based Brown and Caldwell, with more information about a variety of asset management issues, including GASB 34, funding asset replacement and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's response to the Little Hoover Commission report on special districts.

Legislation

To check status of legislation, go to www.leginfo.ca.gov

AB 1011 Infrastructure Investment Fund Allocations
Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 11 of the 2001-02 Regular Session, added, subject to approval of the voters at the March 2, 2004, statewide election, Article XVI A to the California Constitution. The measure established the California Twenty-First Century Infrastructure Investment Fund in the State Treasury, of which 50% would be for state-owned infrastructure and 50% would be for local government infrastructure. AB 1011 (Richman) would set forth specified calculation and distribution formulas for funds transferred from the General Fund to the infrastructure fund pursuant to those provisions.

AB 93 Water Infrastructure Bond
AB 93 (Canciamilla) would provide for the issuance and sale of bonds to finance a water quality, water security, and water supply infrastructure improvement program.

ACA 7 Transportation Funding: Sales and Use Tax
ACA 7 (Dutra) would authorize a county, a city and county, and a regional transportation agency to impose an additional sales and use tax for a period of 20 to 30 years at a rate of 0.5% exclusively for transportation purposes if the additional tax is approved by 55% of the voters of the jurisdiction voting on the proposition to impose the tax.

SCA 2 Sales Taxes: Transportation and Smart Growth
SCA 2 (Torlakson) would authorize a city, a county, a city and county, or a regional transportation agency with the approval of a majority of its voters voting on the proposition, to impose a special tax for the privilege of selling tangible personal property at retail that it is otherwise authorized to impose, if the tax is imposed exclusively to fund transportation projects and services and smart growth planning.

AB 139 Transportation Needs Assessment
AB 139 (Corbett) would declare the intent of the Legislature that a statewide transportation needs assessment be conducted every 5 years.

SB 21 Water Security, Drinking Water and Coastal Protection
SB 21 (Machado) would express legislative intent with respect to the enactment of a comprehensive statutory framework for implementing the Water Security, Clean Drinking Water, Coastal and Beach Protection Act of 2002, an initiative measure approved by the voters at the November 5, 2002, statewide general election. (The November bond measure authorizes the state to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $3,440,000,000.)

AB 148 Water Replenishment Districts
AB 148 (Dymally) would authorize a district to construct necessary works to achieve groundwater replenishment.

AB 124 Joint Use Projects
AB 124 (Cogdill) would authorize approval of joint-use projects at any time without regard to the date upon which any project-related contract was entered into by the school district and would permit the board to consider expenses incurred by the school district on the project as a credit toward meeting the school district's local matching fund requirement.

AB 238 Development and Enhancement of Parks
AB 238 (Oropeza) would state the intent of the Legislature to make reasonable and cost-effective investments in the state's parks and recreational and conservation areas.

AB 107 Water Security: East Bay MUD
AB 107 (Corbett) would appropriate $23,000,000 to the East Bay Municipal Utility District from the November 2002 water bond, of which $15,000,000 would be allocated for water system security capital improvements and $8,000,000 would be allocated for the planning, design, and construction of an interagency water supply emergency project for the purposes of safeguarding water deliveries from terrorist attacks or deliberate acts of destruction or degradation.

AB 361 San Diego Consolidated Transportation Agency
Existing law establishes the San Diego Consolidated Transportation Agency from specified existing agencies. AB 361 (Kehoe) would require the agency to have concluded the public process of preparing and adopting a regional comprehensive plan by June 30, 2004. The bill would require any proposal submitted to the Governor and the Legislature by the Legislative Analyst to be approved by a majority vote of the voters residing within the jurisdiction of the consolidated agency before legislation is enacted regarding the governance structure of the consolidated agency.

AB 437 Jobs-Housing
AB 437 (Matthews) would delete the provisions that the Inter-Regional Partnership have no fiscal impact on any local jurisdiction and would instead require that local jurisdictions within the 5 IRP counties and a Jobs-Housing Opportunity Zone that participate in the pilot project be given priority eligibility in the award of state competitive grants and other economic incentives for projects within the IRP pilot project area.

AB 463 Transit Facilities: Infill Housing
AB 463 (Oropeza) would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to develop an incentive-based strategy to encourage the construction of infill housing and commercial and retail development within opportunity zones in cities, suburbs, and towns and to provide local governments with transportation funding to reward the approval and construction of infill housing and other developments that are at or near transit facilities.

AB 531 Community Infrastructure Bond
AB 531 (Kehoe) would enact the Community Infrastructure and Economic Development Bond Act of 2004, which, if adopted, would authorize the issuance, for the purposes of financing local infrastructure and economic development projects, of bonds in the amount of $10,000,000,000 pursuant to the State General Obligation Bond Law, administered by the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank.

AB 721 Growth Boundaries & Infrastructure Funding
AB 721 (Matthews) would give priority consideration to cities and counties that establish an urban growth boundary for receipt of funding for local capital improvement and other infrastructure projects through the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank.

AB 723 Jobs-housing Opportunity Zones
AB 723 (Matthews) would similarly authorize counties and cities to create infrastructure financing districts in jobs-housing opportunity zones, as defined, to finance public capital facilities in the 5-county interregional partnership area of northern California for the purpose of mitigating current and future imbalances of jobs and housing in the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Joaquin, and Stanislaus.

AB 922 California I-Bank
The Bergeson-Peace Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank Act requires the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank to establish criteria, priorities, and guidelines for the selection of projects to receive assistance from the bank, to be based on a minimum of specified factors. AB 922 (Maze) would include among these factors a requirement that, to the extent practicable, priority be given to projects located in counties with declining populations.

ACA 11 GO Bonds: Infrastructure Projects
ACA 11 (Levine) would authorize a local government, as defined, with the approval of a majority of its voters voting on the proposition at an election, to incur indebtedness in the form of general obligation bonds to fund infrastructure projects.

SB 170 San Francisco Bay Area Infrastructure Planning
SB 170 (Torlakson)would state the intent of the Legislature that cities, counties, and regional agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area begin a constructive dialogue about regional infrastructure issues.

SB 321 Infrastructure Investment Bonds Commission
SB 321 (Torlakson) would establish the Infrastructure Investment Bond Commission with specified membership to issue bonds and administer bond funds to support local infrastructure investment.

SB 585 Freight Movement Bond Act
SB 585 (Soto) would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact a general obligation bond measure for submission to the voters for their approval in order to provide funding to facilitate freight movement, including, but not limited to, construction of railroad-highway grade separations and addition of truck lanes on highways.

AB 646 Local Agency Revenue Sharing
AB 646 (Mullin) would require that cities and counties that adopt regional tax revenue-sharing agreements, including, but not limited to, the above-described contracts that apportion sales tax generated by automobile dealerships or big box retailers, be given priority eligibility by all state agencies in the awarding of competitive state infrastructure funds.

AB 1112 Housing Opportunity Districts
AB 1112 (Lowenthal) would enact the Housing Near Transit Act, which and would authorize a city, county, or city and county that has adopted a resolution of intent, to create a housing transit district, subject to approval by the department. The department could approve only 12 housing transit districts. This bill would also authorize a housing transit district to issue bonds and enter into other forms of indebtedness for the purpose of constructing affordable housing and transit oriented public improvements within a district or the adjacent area.

AB 1183 Border Economic Infrastructure Financing Authority
AB 1183 (Ridley-Thomas) would establish the California and Mexico Border Economic Infrastructure Financing Authority, also known as the CalMex Border Economic Infrastructure Financing Authority within the office of the Treasurer. It would require the authority to issue revenue bonds for the construction and improvement of infrastructure projects within Imperial County and within 100 kilometers of the border between Imperial County and Mexico. The bill would require the authority to establish and maintain the Infrastructure Development Fund into which specified fees charged by the authority would be deposited and be available for the expenses of the authority.

AB 1487 Sales Tax: Infrastructure
AB 1487 (Levine) would declare the Legislature's intent to enact legislation that would utilize sales taxes to fund state infrastructure projects.

SB 744 Planning: Housing
SB 744 (Dunn) would provide that a city, county, or city and county that has met at least 10% of its housing needs for each of the very low, low-, and moderate-income categories during the preceding year or 30% over the preceding 3 years shall receive priority eligibility in the award of competitive state grants or loans for planning, infrastructure, commercial or industrial development, or other economic development.

SB 887 Seaports: Security, Infrastructure Improvement
SB 887 (Perata) would enact the Seaport Security and Port Neighborhood Transportation, Clean Air, and Navigation Improvement Bond Act of 2003, which, if adopted by voters at the next statewide general election, would authorize the issuance of bonds, pursuant to the State General Obligation Bond Law, in the total amount of $1,000,000,000, for purposes of financing a seaport security and port neighborhood transportation, clean air, and navigation improvement program.

SB 998 Economic Stimulus and Public Infrastructure Security Bond
SB 998 (Bowen) would enact the California Economic Stimulus and Public Infrastructure Security and Investment Bond Act, which, if adopted by voters at the next statewide general election, would authorize, for the purpose of financing a program for economic stimulus and infrastructure investment.

AB 1426 Affordable Housing: Greater Sacramento Region
AB 1426 (Steinberg) would require every city and every county within the greater Sacramento region that issues building permits for residential units to require or otherwise cause at least 5% of the aggregate amount of these new residential units to be affordable to, and occupied by, very low income households, and at least 5% of the aggregate amount of these new residential units to be affordable to, and occupied by, low-income households, as specified.

SCA 11 Special Taxes, GO Bonds and Infra Projects
SCA 11 (Alarcon) would authorize a local government, as defined, with the approval of a majority of its voters voting on the proposition in an election, to incur indebtedness in the form of general obligation bonds to fund infrastructure projects, including construction of affordable housing for persons of very low, low, and moderate income, transportation enhancement activities, acquisition of land for open-space use, and other general infrastructure needs. It also would authorize a local government, as defined, with the approval of a majority of its voters voting on the proposition, to impose a special tax, that it is otherwise authorized to impose, if the tax is imposed exclusively to fund infrastructure projects, including construction of affordable housing for persons of very low, low, and moderate income, transportation enhancement activities, acquisition of land for open-space use, and other general infrastructure needs.

AB 536 Water Replenishment Districts
AB 536 (Calderon) requires a water replenishment district, before building, leasing, purchasing, or contracting for a capital improvement project, to determine the feasibility of such a project by ordering or preparing and reviewing a written cost-benefit analysis based upon reasonable assumptions.

AB 1066 Seismic Safety Bond Act of 2004
AB 1066 (Liu) Enacts the Seismic Safety Bond Act of 2004 which, if adopted, would authorize the issuance of bonds in an amount of $700 million to be allocated to the California Seismic Safety Bond Fund of 2004 to fund local government building and facility seismic safety retrofit projects.

AB 1289 Toll Roads
AB 1289 (Benoit) authorizes the Department of Transportation to solicit proposals and enter into agreements for the construction of 4 toll roads under these provisions.

SB 655 Court Facilities Construction and Renovation
SB 655 (Escutia) enacts the Court Facilities Construction and Renovation Bond Act, which would authorize the issuance of bonds, the proceeds of which would be deposited in the State Court Facilities Construction Fund for the purposes specified in existing law. Requires voter approval.

AB 378 School Facilities Maintenance
Existing law requires a school district to certify that it has publicly approved an ongoing and major maintenance plan that outlines the use of funds deposited in an account established for that purpose. AB 378 (Steinberg) would make specific requirements about the amount of funds deposited. It also would rexdefine "major maintenance" to mean repair and all costs of maintaining the facility, grounds, and equipment associated with each school site in working order.

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Proposition 53

In 2003, the California Infrastructure Coalition activated its membership to alert the public to Proposition 53, which appeared on the Governor's recall election ballot. Although, Proposition 53 did not pass, it was the first statewide initiative to dedicate a portion of the state budget to infrastructure. And, it was the Coalition's first major statewide organizing effort.