BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    



                                                                  AB 1403
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 20, 2009

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
                                   Mike Eng, Chair
                     AB 1403 (Eng) - As Amended:  April 28, 2009
           
          SUBJECT  :  Transportation Development Account: Local  
          Transportation Funds: planning and programming  

           SUMMARY  :   Deletes the $1 million cap on allocations of  
          Transportation Development Account (TDA) funds to the Southern  
          California Association of Governments (SCAG), effective July 1,  
          20011.  

           EXISTING LAW  :  

          1)Provides two major sources of funding for public  
            transportation: the Local Transportation Fund (LTF) and the  
            State Transit Assistance fund (STA).  These funds are for the  
            development and support of public transportation needs that  
            exist in California.  

          2)Directs  percent of the state sales tax to the LTF in each  
            county for various transportation purposes, including  
            transportation planning and programming, public transit and,  
            under limited circumstances, local streets and roads.  

          3)Allocates LTF funds to transportation authorities, which may  
            use up to a specified percentage of their LTF funds for  
            planning and programming purposes.  Limits, in the SCAG  
            region, the LTF allocations for this purpose to up to  of 1%,  
            but no more than $1 million annually.  

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  Unknown

           COMMENTS  :  According to the author, the purpose of this bill is  
            to allow SCAG to receive its full apportionment of  of 1% of  
            LTF allocation, as authorized for all the other 16  
            Metropolitan Planning Organizations in the state.  

          SCAG cites the following reasons for eliminating the cap:  
     
          4)SCAG's duties have increased and grown in complexity over 30  
            years (e.g. air quality conformity analysis, change and  
            expansion in federal and state regional planning requirements,  








                                                                  AB 1403
                                                                  Page  2

            development of sustainable community strategies), which  
            necessitates the full allocation of TDA funds to support these  
            federal and state mandated activities.  

          5)SCAG needs a stable, predictable revenue source for  
            administrative and federal matching funds.  

          6)Removal of the cap would not impact the allocation formula or  
            allocations to other parts of the state. It would affect only  
            the four county agencies within the SCAG region (Los Angeles,  
            Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties) which,  
            according to SCAG, are in agreement with the proposal to lift  
            the $1 million cap.  

          7)Removing the cap would increase LTF allocations to SCAG from  
            the existing $1 million cap to a total of $4.6 million  
            annually.  

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :  

           Support 
           
          Southern California Association of Governments (sponsor)

           Opposition 
           
          None on file
           
          Analysis Prepared by  :    Janet Dawson / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093