BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 1582
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 30, 2014

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                  Mike Gatto, Chair

                   AB 1582 (Mullin) - As Amended:  April 22, 2014 

          Policy Committee:                              Local  
          GovernmentVote:9 - 0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:              

           SUMMARY  

          This bill revises the timeline for the preparation of the  
          required Recognized Obligation Payment Schedule (ROPS) by the  
          successor agency from every six months to annually, to  
          correspond with the agency's fiscal year.  

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)Potential administrative savings to the Department of Finance  
            (DOF) resulting from reviewing ROPS annually instead of every  
            six months.

          2)Unknown, but likely significant administrative savings and  
            efficiencies to local Successor Agencies and affected county  
            departments resulting from preparing ROPS on an annual basis  
            instead of every six months.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Purpose  .  The author asserts that a six-month ROPS time period  
            causes significant implementation issues as well as difficulty  
            for long-term finding calculations. These issues have  
            negatively affected a successor agency's ability to ensure  
            that developers are properly paid in regards to the  
            contractual obligations between them and the former  
            redevelopment agency, and now the successor agency.  This bill  
            is intended to rectify this by aligning the ROPS reporting  
            period with the annual, fiscal year budget process.

           2)Background  .  As part of the winding down of redevelopment  
            agencies, AB 1484 (Blumenfield), Chapter 26, Statutes of 2012,  








                                                                  AB 1582
                                                                  Page  2

            made various statutory changes associated with the dissolution  
            of redevelopment agencies and addressed a number of  
            substantive issues related to administrative processes,  
            affordable housing activities, repayment of loans from  
            communities, use of existing bond proceeds and the disposition  
            or retention of former redevelopment agency assets.

            As part of this process, each successor agency is responsible  
            for drafting a ROPS delineating the enforceable obligations of  
            the former RDA and their source of payment every six months.   
            ROPS are subject to the approval of the local oversight board.

            Since the dissolution of RDAs, the ROPS process has been time  
            consuming, complex and controversial. The preparation and  
            administration of each ROPS involves significant time by local  
            agency staff and its attorneys, as well as additional workload  
            for oversight boards and DOF.  Numerous decisions by DOF to  
            reject a proposed item from being listed on a ROPS have been  
            subject to litigation. 

            However, in the three years since RDAs were dissolved, the  
            ROPS process has settled down. Nearly 300 local successor  
            agencies have received a 'finding of completion" from DOF,  
            indicating that some points of controversy are resolved.   
            Shifting the ROPS process to an annual cycle will save staff  
            time by avoiding repetitive processing on non-controversial  
            items and improve predictability for local agencies.


           Analysis Prepared by  :    Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)  
          319-2081