Transportation improvement fee: revenue bonds.

Existing law creates the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Program to address deferred maintenance on the state highway system and the local street and road system. Existing law provides for the deposit of various revenues for the program in the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, including specified portions of revenues from certain fuel excise taxes, a road improvement fee imposed on certain zero-emission vehicles, and the transportation improvement fee. Existing law imposes the transportation improvement fee under the Vehicle License Fee Law with a varying fee between $25 and $175 based on vehicle value and an inflation adjustment, and requires the fee to be collected at the same time and in the same manner as the vehicle registration fee. Existing law requires revenues in the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account to be annually allocated by first making specified deductions for various specified purposes and then continuously appropriating the remaining revenues in the account 50% for allocation to the Department of Transportation for maintenance of the state highway system or for the State Highway Operation and Protection Program and 50% for apportionment to cities and counties by the Controller pursuant to a specified formula. This bill would create the Transportation Improvement Fee Subaccount in the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account and would transfer the revenues from the transportation improvement fee that are deposited in the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account to the subaccount. The bill would continuously appropriate the revenues in the subaccount to the department and cities and counties as part of the same appropriation made to those entities from the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account. The bill would prohibit the revenues in the subaccount from being used to satisfy the above-described deductions from the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, except under specified circumstances. The bill would require the revenues in the subaccount to be used first to satisfy the 50% allocation to the department and would require those revenues to be deposited in the State Highway and SHOPP TIF Account, which the bill would create in the State Transportation Fund. This bill would continuously appropriate the amounts deposited in the State Highway and SHOPP TIF Account and pledged by the Transportation Improvement Fee Finance Committee, as specified below, to the Treasurer for the purposes of issuing revenue bonds, as specified, and the amounts that have not been pledged by the committee would be continuously appropriated to the department for the purposes of the maintenance of the state highway system or the State Highway Operation and Protection Program, subject to the terms of the issuing instrument for any outstanding revenue bonds. This bill would create the Transportation Improvement Fee Finance Committee, consisting of specified state officers, solely for the purpose of authorizing the issuance and sale of the above-described revenue bonds and the execution and delivery of ancillary obligations, and executing and entering into an issuing instrument. The bill would authorize the committee, in order to provide security for the revenue bonds and ancillary obligations, to include provisions in an issuing instrument pledging the interests of the state in the State Highway and SHOPP TIF Account to the payment of the revenue bonds and the payment of ancillary obligations. This bill would authorize the department to designate projects to be funded from the proceeds of revenue bonds that are included in the State Highway Operation and Protection Program adopted by the California Transportation Commission on May 13, 2020, and that have completed environmental clearance and project design. The bill would authorize the department to request the committee to authorize the issuance of revenue bonds to provide funds for the designated projects. This bill would permit the committee to authorize the Treasurer to sell the revenue bonds at public or private sale and to do all things necessary or convenient to carry out the powers and purposes of these provisions. The bill would authorize revenue bonds to be issued on a tax-exempt or taxable basis in a principal amount not to exceed $5,000,000,000, excluding refunding bonds and excluding any net original issuance premium derived from the sale of the bonds. The bill would create the State TIF Revenue Bond Fund in the State Treasury and would require the net proceeds derived from the issuance of revenue bonds to be deposited in the fund. The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund to the department and the Treasurer to finance or refinance projects designated by the department and to fund necessary reserves for principal and interest, capitalized interest, credit enhancement or liquidity costs, costs of issuance, and administrative expenses associated with the revenue bonds. This bill would provide that the revenue bonds may not be deemed to constitute a debt or liability of the state or any political subdivision of the state, or a pledge of the full faith and credit of the state or any political subdivision of the state, but shall be paid solely from the funds and revenues pledged for that purpose. This bill would provide that the state covenants with the holders of these revenue bonds, and with those parties who may enter into ancillary obligations, that it will not alter, amend, or restrict the specified provisions of law, including provisions creating the transportation improvement fee, in any manner that would materially adversely impair the interests of those bondholders or parties.