Council Member Chris Orlando has been selected to represent the City of San Marcos at the Local Government Summit on Governance and Fiscal Reform in Sacramento on July 17 and 18. The historic summit meeting will be a forum where mayors, council members, county supervisors and school board members from across California can discuss emerging proposals to reform the state’s governance and fiscal systems.
Record state deficits, late and unbalanced budgets, and an inability to address the critical issues of the day – energy, water, education, health services and more – all point towards the conclusion that the state’s governmental system is dysfunctional. This crisis is due in large part to the more fundamental problem of over-concentrating decision making at the state level at the expense of true local priority setting and spending decisions.
One example of the dysfunction is that the state has taken upwards of $10 billion in city property taxes to help meet state budget obligations to schools since 1991, yet state spending on schools is among the lowest if not the lowest in the nation.
“I am honored to serve as San Marcos’ delegate to the Summit because there is no more critical issue at the moment than addressing governance and fiscal reform so our City can efficiently operate and meet our residents’ needs,” said Council Member Chris Orlando.
The two day summit is sponsored by the Cities Counties School Partnership, which is a collaboration of the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties and the California School Boards Association.
“The proposals to both seize and borrow money from local government to meet the state’s obligations are an indication of the state’s inability to govern itself,” said Chris McKenzie, executive director of the League of California Cities. “The League helped convene this important event because it is imperative that local government leaders have a voice in helping reform our state system of governance to ensure a strong future for our great state and our grandchildren. Our three groups, the cities, counties and schools, are coming together because we understand we must work collaboratively to help restore a greater degree of local control and stability to our state government.”
