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With legislative leadership from
our very own Assemblymember Dario Frommer, and strong support from state
Treasurer Phil Angelides, Assembly Bill 593 is moving through the
legislature to provide longterm financial support for California higher
education.
The
bill's premise is that there are billions of dollars worth of
state-owned properties that are not adequately utilized. The Department
of General Services, in its admittedly incomplete inventory, estimates
that the state owns about 6.6 million acres of land, and about 23,000
structures totaling around 204 million square feet. These holdings need
to be fully inventoried, and their current usage and benefits
evaluated. According to the Little Hoover Commission, the state has an
"antiquated" system of property management; thus these public assets are
not currently managed to provide maximum benefits to the public.
AB 593 proposes a
Public Trust to transfer these state-owned properties into a CalHope
Trust, a public corporation to manage the property efficiently and in a
business-like way, in order to yield more than $2 billion over the next
ten years. These funds would be earmarked for higher education,
including college preparation, counseling, financial aid and other
enhancements to college access.
The endowment could
provide longterm financial resources for the people, and would be
organized like a charitable foundation governed by a public board.
Transferring the state's real estate into this CalHope portfolio would
create one of the largest higher education endowments in the nation.
Other
examples of this kind of public trust include the British Columbia
Buildings Corporation, created 30 years ago, and reports an income of
$46 million (Canadian dollars) in 2003 based on properties worth only 10
percent of California's public property.
Assemblymember Frommer welcomes your comments.
For further
information, contact Assemblymember Dario Frommer's office. Local: 818
240-6330. or go to
http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a43/
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