Sacramento may have dug up lost funds

Alex Coolman

Line-item vetoes in the state budget approved by Gov. Gray Davis on

Friday appear to have freed up enough money to restore lost funding for a

Newport Beach dredging project, city officials said.

Deputy City Manager Dave Kiff said Davis had cut about $35 million from

the Legislature’s allocation package, a move that will likely return $13

million originally intended for a large Back Bay dredging project.

Susie Swatt, a spokesperson for Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine), said the

complexity of the final budget package would make it impossible to say

with complete certainty that the money was secure until the senator’s

office had time to review the entire document.

“They’re 99-plus percent certain,” Swatt said. “It looks really good, but

you want to be really careful.”

The money was part of a $2.1-billion package of coastal improvement

projects included in Proposition 12, which voters approved in March to

improve state parks, recreation and wildlife facilities. But it appeared

to have been lost earlier this month, when the state budget emerged from

the Legislature.

More Prop. 12 money was spent under that version of the budget than was

available, and the dredging project was left out of the allocation

process.

Since then, city officials and residents have lobbied Davis to cut the

excess spending. The environmental organization Defend the Bay

distributed fliers to 2,000 local homes earlier this week to drum up

interest about the financial snafu.

“All of the agencies involved in the Bay, from the county to the state

agencies, were really important about hammering the message home in

Sacramento,” Kiff said.

With the money apparently restored, Kiff said the city is going to push

for Sacramento to ensure that it doesn’t somehow wander off again.

“We’re going to go ahead and encourage the resources agencies to actually

put [Newport’s dredging project] in their budget proposal for next year,”

he said. “Instead of getting involved in the tweaking process, we’ll get

involved earlier.”