Commentary

The region north of Los Angeles County, bordering the Southern California boundary, includes Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Kern Counties. Looking at the Caltrans District Map, the region includes District 7 without Los Angeles County, Kern County in Region 6, and Santa Barbara and SLO Counties in Region 5. Combined they have 36 cities.

One city, Taft, west of Bakersfield and east of Santa Maria, in oil country, is the last to release its annual comprehensive financial report for the year ending June 30, 2020. Yes, it’s many years behind. Trying to find the rationale for this significant delinquency has not been easy, and the city’s finance director did not shed any light on this sad status. But being in oil country may explain it all.

The city’s website has a section titled “Let’s Talk Taft.” Better fiscal transparency and timeliness on providing current financial statements was not one of the local priorities listed by its residents. However, this section was very transparent about the fiscal status of this small town:

“With our two prisons closing, Sacramento’s extreme regulations on the oil/gas industry and the COVID economic downturn, our City is facing a financial crisis. That’s why we’ve launched Let’s Talk Taft—a community engagement survey and discussion to hear your priorities and ensure your needs are addressed moving forward.

“Over the last several years, Taft has lost nearly $3,000,000 due to Sacramento’s burdensome regulations and state money grabs. Increasing local control over our own local funding will allow us to continue to be self-reliant by protecting our money [sic] State or Federal governments.

“Furthermore, we have recently been informed the cost of Kern County Fire Department’s services to our City will double within five years which is a significant concern. We want to avoid any situation where the City is forced to reduce fire protection and paramedic services.”

Ed Ring, writing for the California Policy Center, provided an overview of the city of Taft, confirming the website’s laments, in “The Crossroads of Kern County.”

Its outside independent auditors finally completed their fieldwork on Oct. 24, 2024, some three years after the normal date to finish an audit. The graph below provides the per capita of the unrestricted net position for governmental activities of this region’s cities.

As you can see from the rankings for the year ending June 30, 2020, the city of Taft is in 28th place. But it’s in better fiscal shape than eight neighboring cities, including Simi Valley, Oxnard, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara.

California’s COVID-19 lockdown started in March of 2020, the last quarter of the 2020 fiscal year. It would appear that nearly 95 percent of this region’s cities held their own, either not moving in the rankings or doing so by only one or two positions.

The city of Camarillo improved its position three places. This is due to human error on my part. Even with the highest standards of quality control, somehow the unrestricted net position for 2019 was incorrect. My rankings for this region for 2019, provided in “How Does Your Southern California City Rank on Fiscal Health?” July 21, 2023, needs to be modified. Camarillo’s unrestricted net position was $69,425,167, not $28,344,000. How does this change the 2019 rankings? Camarillo moves from 9th to 6th place. The cities of Thousand Oaks, Paso Robles, and Goleta each dropped one place. Please accept my apologies for the error. Consequently, Camarillo had no change in position from 2019 to 2020. And that’s one of the reasons why I check for major movements in the rankings.

The city of Goleta is the only major mover, dropping six places. Its unrestricted net position dropped by $8.3 million after having revenues in excess of expenditures of $4.1 million offset by the purchasing of the new City Hall for $11.5 million. It’s unclear how this would reduce the net equity of the city, but its annual comprehensive financial report for June 30, 2021, the following year, shows the city improving its position nearly fourfold.

Now Taft must trudge along and complete its audits for the years ending June 30, 2021, and subsequent years. Then the rankings will provide a picture of how more severely state policies on reducing local oil production and shipping this critical commodity to California from the Middle East, is hurting this key area of the state. One wonders if more greenhouse gases are being emitted by oil tankers traveling over miles of ocean than saved by the rustbelt treatment impacting the city of Taft.

Sacramento’s pursuing climate change policies can negatively impact certain residents in the Golden State. And those residing in a city named after a former United States president are reflecting it through their city government’s delinquency in reporting its financial position.