State of California plays 'me first' with revenue from city's redevelopment agency

Thousand Oaks financial director Candice Hong is remaining calm even as sales tax revenues decline and the state starts grabbing the city's money.

As public information officer Andrew Powers put it: "It's better for us to be strategic than reactive."

News from state Controller John Chiang's office let city officials throughout California know they will not be getting all the money they anticipated from vehicle driver licensing fees. For Thousand Oaks that could mean as much as $439,000 less than expected by the end of this calendar year.

According to Hong, the city gets about $600,000 annually from the state from these fees and has already received $161,000.

"The $439,000 is the worst case. That is only if we don't get another dime from them, which is unlikely," Powers said.

Both Powers and Hong expressed optimism that more money would be coming to the city from the state since the Legislature is looking at tripling the licensing fees as it did before the last governor was recalled.

In September the state took away $1.2 million of the city's redevelopment money. That money came from a portion of property taxes received from redevelopment areas of the city. The money would have been earmarked for capital improvements in Thousand Oaks' two redevelopment areas—Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Newbury Road.

Capital improvements proposed for those areas include pavement overlay and drainage improvements, Hong said.

"We'll have to take a look at what needs to be done and scale down and prioritize," Hong said.

The city gets about $10 million a year for the Thousand Oaks Boulevard redevelopment area alone, Hong said.

The $1.2 million amount is supposed to be a onetime takeback amount and not an ongoing loss of funds for the city's redevelopment funds, Powers said.