The state of California owns land and structures nearly twice the size of Los Angeles County. Most of that we need, but it turns out that we have a significant amount of surplus property that can be sold off. These are parcels like land CalTrans purchased for roads that were never built. Four years ago the Schwarzenegger administration estimated that we could bring in $5 billion from selling the surplus land.
This is something both Democrats and Republicans are interested in exploring. CCTimes
Sen. Dean Florez, a Fresno-area Democrat who heads the Senate government committee, said he would rather "sell our surplus property, before we sell or lease the lottery."
"We are going to be looking at every single asset and asking the question of whether there is any longer a use for these properties," said Florez.
Republican Sen. Jeff Denham, of Merced, said that "we want to see what can be sold to deal with this year's budget crisis," as well as those of any future years.
There is absolutely no way that the state can or even should try and sell off all of these properties quick enough to raise billions of dollars to help with this year's budget deficit. Rushing would lead to mistakes, ones that could be costly if the state sells off property it turns out we need. Plus, rushing for quick sales will reduce the revenue back into the state.
It is important to point out that this is absolutely an attack by Republicans on governmental bureaucracy.
But lawmakers said they are ready to get tough with departments, slashing even more than proposed amounts, then letting officials fill in the revenue gap with land-sale proceeds. Currently, proceeds must go to pay off deficit bonds.
Legislators said that, in essence, they want to force departments to justify retaining land.
However, there may be a there there. Departments right now do not have any incentive to put resources into selling the land owned by them. They do the work to sell the land and then never see the money. That appears to be the main cause for the holding of so many parcels that they do not need.
If we are slashing services and our education budget, we do need to examine closely proposals like this one. There is no way we will get close to $5 billion this year, nor do we have a good estimate if that number is a real one, given the fluctuations in the real estate market. Basically, we need more information before the legislators proceed. However, of all of the paths to increasing revenue to the state, this seems like a relatively uncontroversial one that could bear some fruit.
