Talking with Noreen

Napa Valley Register
November 29 , 2009

The Assemblywoman on budgets, taxes, prison costs and political reform

Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, recently visited the Register editorial board, a few weeks after the end of another dismal year in Sacramento.

Evans, whose term ends in 2010, has launched her campaign to replace the retiring state senator whose district includes Napa County, Pat Wiggins. Two other Democrats will battle the better-known and better-funded Evans for the seat — Santa Rosa school official David Rosas and Sonoma City Councilman Joanne Bouldt Sanders.

Topics at the meeting ranged from the dire state budget to what Evans said are the most important steps the state Legislature can take to address California’s budget problems.

In many respects, Evans’ views reflect California Democratic Party orthodoxy. In other ways, the Assembly Budget Committee chairwoman has staked out independent positions reflecting her own views and the interests of her district. Here are some highlights:

• The budget: California budget officials project a $6 billion deficit for the seven months remaining this budget year $20 billion deficits in subsequent years. This grim scenario means more pain ahead, even if, as Evans said, California has “already cut to the bone” with reductions in school funding and furloughs for DMV, court and other employees.

Evans said the largest remaining target for cuts is the state prison system, which has grown enormously in cost and population over the last 15 years. Evans said strict sentencing laws such as Three Strikes have contributed to overcrowding and ballooning costs. Despite the concerns of law enforcement agencies and tough-on-crime legislators, the state should prepare to release non-violent, non-sex offenders from the prison system, she said.

• Pension reform: Evans said that several big contracts between the state and unions are to be negotiated this year. She acknowledged that some pension reform is necessary, such as when veteran law enforcement officers take retirement with pensions nearly equal to their salaries and then accept new, full-salary law enforcement jobs. But she said there is relatively little savings in pension reform.

She criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stance that the state should not consider new taxes and that the state must “live within its means.” She said throwing out the revenue-generating option handcuffs the state.

She said she favors the so-called “split roll” proposal that would push commercial properties outside the Proposition 13 tax shelter.

She said it is unfair that under Proposition 13, a major corporation like Bank of America can pay less in property tax on its San Francisco headquarters than the new buyers of “grandma’s house.”

Evans’ seemingly powerful budget position still left her outside looking in this year, as the so-called Big 5 — the governor and the top Democrat and Republican in both the state Assembly and Senate — commandeered the process in secret negotiations.

Evans was highly critical of what she termed the governor’s abuse of the Big 5 meetings, which she said had previously been used only to iron out details of publicly negotiated budgets.

She cited the backroom decision to cut funding for In-Home Support Services, in which the state pays modest reimbursement to family members and others caring for the infirm, as a backroom “disaster.”

• Water: Schwarzenegger forced a special session this month to pass measures that would launch a massive overhaul of the state water project.

Evans voted against the proposal, which would require an $11 billion bond to be passed by voters. Evans has consistently been skeptical of bond-related debt, and said the state can ill afford more today. Further, she said, “As a resident of the North Coast, I saw no benefit of the bill” and that North Coast residents need not pay for Southern California’s water problems.

Evans, who toured the Carneros area and Napa Sanitation District a day earlier, said reclaimed water projects like the one hoped for in the North Bay and increased conservation measures around the state are necessary.

• Budget, term limit reform: With California’s budget in shambles, there are calls for a state constitutional convention, a tax code overhaul and other radical reform measures. Evans said that, in her view, two reforms are necessary for the state to move forward.

One is to relax or remove term limits for legislators. She said that solving the California budget crisis could be a 20-year process, and even coming up with a viable plan takes more than the two years of an Assemblyperson’s term. The work will not get done, she said, unless lawmakers have the time and experience in office to address the issue meaningfully.

She also said it is important that the two-thirds super-majority required to pass a budget must be reduced to a simple majority vote. The failure to pass a timely budget in recent years has caused Democrats, the party in power, to seek this reform, while Republicans see things differently.

It appears that one or more proposals to eliminate the supermajority will appear on the June 2010 ballot, the same one in which Evans’ name next appears.

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