High-speed rail misses out on California's massive budget surplus
Gov. Gavin Newsom spent the past week promoting a long list of new spending proposals made possible by a record-smashing budget surplus — but the state’s embattled bullet train is missing out.
While the May budget revision Newsom rolled out on Friday calls for giving the California High Speed Rail Authority $4.2 billion to build the first segment of its system in the Central Valley, that proposal does not represent new state funding for the project.
Instead, the money would come out of the bond voters approved in 2008 to start the high-speed rail system that promised to eventually take riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles, tapping funds that were already raised to pay for the project. That differs from a proposal several leaders of the state Legislature have made to divert the bond money to other local public transit projects, which they argue would provide more immediate benefits.
Still, even with a surplus of more than $100 billion to spread around the state, Newsom notably chose not make any new commitments to the high-speed rail project, which will need to come up with tens of billions of dollars if it’s ever going reach the Bay Area or Los Angeles.
Read more: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/05/16/high-speed-rail-misses-out-on-californias-massive-budget-surplus/
(San Jose Mercury News)
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The budget proposes $1.75 billion in new investments for homeless housing, including $750 million to continue Project Homekey — the pandemic program that helps cities and counties buy hotels, apartments, dorms and other buildings and turn them into long-term homeless housing. Newsom also asked the legislature for funding to stimulate affordable housing construction and augment the construction workforce.
“In these darkest moments of the COVID-19 pandemic, this budget will help Californians with urgent action to address our immediate challenges and build towards our recovery,” Newsom said in a written statement.
Last year, continuing efforts to temporarily get homeless Californians off the street and out of crowded shelters during the pandemic, the governor’s office allocated $846 million in federal, state and philanthropic funds toward Project Homekey. Using those funds, cities and counties purchased 94 buildings, creating more than 6,000 units of long-term homeless housing. The purchases were granted exemptions from certain permitting requirements, speeding up the process and allowing the deals to close in a matter of months instead of years.
