City Council
[email protected]
June 13, 2023
Assemblymember Maienschein
1021 O St
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: AB 972 (Maienschein) Local Assistance and Grant Program Streamlining Workgroup - SUPPORT Dear Assemblymember Maienschein,
On behalf of the City of San Marcos, we are pleased to support AB 972 (Maienschein), which would coordinate, align, and streamline local government assistance resources to ensure that every community has the same opportunity to compete for state funding opportunities by convening a statewide, cross-agency Local Assistance and Grant Program Streamlining Workgroup, no later than April 2024.
At the state level, local assistance efforts are largely conducted by individual grant programs, and, although centrally located via the California State Library’s Grants Portal, nearly all state grant programs have unique and widely varied procedures for application and scoring. Further, although best practices for local assistance have been developed and published by the Strategic Growth Council, local assistance efforts are not uniformly conducted across state departments, offices, boards, commissions, and agencies.
Local municipalities often lack the resources, staff capacity, implementation experience, and technical expertise to apply for and secure competitive statewide targeted grant funding. Additionally, like other sectors, California cities are facing staffing shortages, a wave of early retirement, and other workforce stressors on existing municipal staff. Streamlined application processes and robust, uniform local assistance from the state is crucial for cities to effectively access state funding opportunities.
Climate resiliency, natural resources, and environmental quality programs are nearly always funding with a combination of federal, state, and local resources. Cities are left to compete for scarce funding and stack various grant opportunities which increases the complexity and decreases the likelihood of successfully securing grant program funding.
By aligning procedures of the financing programs under the purview of the California Natural Resources Agency and the California Environmental Protection Agency, AB 972 will help stretch limited funding as far as possible and bolster efforts to address shared state and local climate resiliency goals. For these reasons, the City of San Marcos is pleased to Support AB 972. Please feel free to contact me at (760) 744-1050, or [email protected], whenever needed.
Sincerely,
Rebecca D. Jones
Mayor
cc: L
eague of California Cities (Via email: [email protected])