Been wondering what ever happened with that $30 million in property tax money that the San Francisco 49ers were going to get for their new Santa Clara stadium, only then the state development agency that was going to give it to them got dissolved and the body that inherited the money said they’d rather spend it on schoolteachers, and then there was a lawsuit and a settlement and then the California state finance department said the settlement was illegal? No? Well, tough, you’re going to hear it anyway:
After a yearlong royal rumble between the San Francisco 49ers, local schools, the Brown administration and others, a judge on Wednesday ruled that South Bay school officials were wrong last year to yank $30 million in disputed tax funds from the team’s new stadium.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner said in a nine-page tentative ruling that he could not immediately award the funds to the 49ers, but he appeared to leave little recourse but to make sure the Niners eventually receive the money one way or another. The team may have to wait until as late as 2016 to receive the cash, however, the judge said.
The Santa Clara board that tried to take back the $30 million is now expected to appeal, with a hearing scheduled for Friday. The San Jose Mercury News claims that this will “conclude a contentious court case that began when the 49ers sued to reclaim the money last June,” but the notion of anything ever concluding in this case seems but a distant dream.
It’s bit disillusioning to think all those “Yes, for the Schools!” signs prior to the Measure J vote were just fibbing. I really thought the 49ers cared about our schools. What can I believe in now if not that? This is going to be a hard day for me…
So the county decides to take money from an agreement between a city and a private business, now a judge has said you can not do that. That action is hidden behind “its for schools” hahah.. yeah right “other agencies” also are taking a cut.
You may not like who the private business is in this case (i.e the 49ers), but is still a money grab just because the private business is a “football” team.
So an all knowing county board decides that money from Santa Calara city taxes must be used county wide not just for schools but other agencies, because they dont like who the city goes into business with.
So this money will be broken up by percentages to different county agencies, including education. But if that money actually makes it the classroom that would be a shock.
I believe after all the county agencies get their cut and the small percentage that does goes “to schoos” it will be spent on paying district officials their mid six figure salaries and their underwater luxury condos in downtown san jose.
Thank you santa clara city business taxes for bailing out santa clara county officials frivolous spending. All they had to say was “its for schools” hahaha..
The fact that the Santa Clara City Council, in concert with the 49ers, intentionally defrauded the State, County and taxpayers should be recognized. The agreements at issue were NEVER planned nor discussed until the Governir announced that RDAs were going away!
This is a prime example of the outright greed of the 49ers. They repeatedly committed that they would take NOTHING if there wasn’t any RDA money left in 2026, when redevelopment was to expire. The commitment that was voted on by Santa Clarans was to provide UP TO $40 million IF, repeat IF, there was any leftover money. If there was no money left, they would forgive the debt all together.
The judge is wrong in his preliminary opinion, hopefully he will realize the bait-and-switch at today’s hearing.
If the 49ers are intimately successful after the Appeal process is finished, they should be ashamed of themselves.
The calendar each year for the City of Santa Clara shows a pie chart of which agencies get how much from each dollar of property taxes paid. The RDA dollars are property tax dollars which have been siphoned off within a designated RDA area. RDA dollars are dollars which otherwise would go to a variety of public agencies, as they do in non-RDA areas. According to the city’s pie chart:
Local schools get the largest share of each property tax dollar = 38%
Other agencies which get a smaller share of each property tax dollar include the city’s general fund, county’s general fund, county office of education, fire district, water district, community college district and other special districts. You can find this pie chart on the city of Santa Clara’s website. It is on the July 2013 page of the city’s calendar.
The news has reported on budget deficits at the school/city/county level for years. The siphoning off of tens of millions of property tax dollars by RDAs throughout Santa Clara County – each year, for many years – has been a major contributor to the budget deficits felt by our local and county agencies.
I feel bad now about paying my property taxes since it’s apparently being wasted for the most part by featherbedding county officials and bloodsucking unions. Man, I think the 49ers were smart to avoid paying property taxes on “their” stadium–gotta hand it them!
hahah good one SC jay payer!
biggest bait and switch of all time and still works today is, wait for it…..
its for schools!!!
Here’s the link to the city calendar:
santaclaraca.gov/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=2079
Here is the breakdown of how much each agency gets from each property tax dollar:
Santa Clara schools 38.05%
County of Santa Clara 18.05%
City of Santa Clara 10.19%
SC County Office of Education 3.97%
Community College district 11.09
ERAF (Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund) 15.84%
Other districts (water, fire) 2.50
So every RDA dollar which goes to the 49ers takes money away from the agencies listed above.
SCTaxpayer, the 38% is going to schools county wide or just santa clara city?
Is this county board reallocating the money ($30 million) to the percentages you quoted? Or are they keeping the money and allocating only to county agencies and santa clara city will not see any of it? From previous articles it seems the county was keeping the money at the county level.
Judge ruling was about obligation when you enter a contract, a contract is a contract.
So i guess the only business that has ever received RDA money and taken away money from those agencies is the 49ers ;).
My understanding is that any agreements or contracts with RDAs were voided because they existed at the state’s pleasure and the state decided to eliminate them while warning in advance that they intended to do this. The question is on the timing of the RDA agreements.
My other point is that in potential “gray” areas involving the 49ers, white middle aged judges, may have a bias ruling towards the team because they probably like them and don’t really care about the school districts or other agencies.
Wow really scjay?? we are now talking about a judge rulled for one party over another not based on the merits of the case but because he is a football fan and likes the 49ers???
Maybe the judge does not like the teachers unions, maybe the judge is an investor in a property across from the stadium, maybe the judge did not like how the lawyers for the county were dressed…. if we going down that path lol
I think we are really reaching on this one, this case is simple a contract is a contract.
SantaClaraTaxpayer, those percentages are for property tax collected and not RDA money.
From reading your saying that the county board is going to distribute the $30 million based on those percentages. So SC schools would get 38% of that money.
But if that was the case, why do we need a county board? city RDA money should just be distributed along those lines. No need for a board.
The board is collecting rda money from all cities and distributing it as they see fit. Some will go to schools but not necessarily SC schools, maybe will go to east sj schools or other schools.
Yes rda money does come from.property taxes but will not stay in each city, will be used county wide to help other cities.
Hence the need for a county board to oversee everything.
The 38% goes to Santa Clara Unified, a K-12 district which encompasses most of the City of Santa Clara. It is the district which encompasses the Santa Clara redevelopment areas (one large RDA area around the stadium area, 2 small RDA areas elsewhere.)
The Santa Clara County office of Education (which runs programs such as preschool, some special education programs, programs for students who have been expelled from public schools, and programs to help districts throughout the county) gets 3.97%.
The RDA dollars go to a RDA successor agency. There is a RDA Oversight Board established by the state for each former RDA (the O Board has 7 members composed from the entities which receive public tax dollars from property taxes), and the Oversight Board is charged with deciding which claims to RDA funds are enforceable and which are not.
For all RDA money which is not deemed payable to an existing RDA obligation (such as low income housing) the remainder gets divided up among the public entities which receive property taxes. The portion of what each agency receives is supposed to be according to the percentages listed above from the city’s website. Will this division of RDA dollars happen according to those percentages? Well, those are the percentages used to divide up non-RDA property tax dollars. There’s no reason that’s been given why property tax dollars from RDA areas which aren’t going to be used to pay off RDA obligations would be divided up differently from non-RDA property tax dollars.
is the 49ers and city of santa clara agreement not an “existing RDA obligation”?
Is there any documentation that says how the board needs to divide up the RDA money? If not politics will win out and some agencies that get a lower percentage of property tax money normally, will now have a source of money to balance their budgets. All behind “give us that money to save our schools”.
In other words why would the board divide up the RDA money along those percentages if they do not have to?
@Geuy They do have to divide it up that way. The percentages aren’t random; they are set at least at the county level. It has been made very clear in the documents from the county that those are the percentages which are in effect.
The 49ers have no ‘existing agreement’ with the City of Santa Clara.
The 49ers have a LLC (limited liability company = Stadco) which has an agreement with the Stadium Authority for a loan of $30 million which the 49ers want the Stadium Authority to pay with RDA dollars. The Stadium Authority had an agreement or some form (cooperation agreement, I think) with the RDA to give the SA the money to give to the 49ers. That’s what the court documents from SC County Counsel state. There wasn’t a direct 49ers to RDA agreement.
I hope the county appeals. I’d like to see this go to a panel of multiple judges rather than just to one judge for a decision.
@jj-slug – No. You’re wrong about how this works for the schools. RDA property tax dollars go to the school district in which the RDA is located. Santa Clara Unified gets the school dollars (38%) from the Santa Clara RDAs because the Santa Clara RDA is located within the boundaries of Santa Clara Unified. San Jose’s RDA is huge and lies within the boundaries of multiple school districts. Those districts will receive RDA dollars in proportion to the RDA property taxes collected within their districts. RDA money does not get sent to other school districts. It stays in the local district which has the RDA.
Other money from the RDA does go to county agencies just as it does in non-RDA areas (see the % list above.) And some stays with the city in which the RDA is located.
The county can’t just take RDA money and distribute any way it wants to. The Oversight Board is established by the state to make sure that the enforceable obligations entered into by the RDA are met, and the remaining money is distributed among the taxing entities according to legal requirements (the percentages listed in an earlier post.)
I didn’t think there was a “contract” anywhere stating the 49ers get their loan to the SA paid back with RDA dollars. The 49ers knew there was a calculated risk that this wouldn’t in fact happen but they loaned the funds anyway. Now it appears that a judge sees it their way…
And yes, I don’t really trust white, middle aged judges who grew up watching Joe Montana & Jerry Rice. The judge who who took away the citizen’s right to a re-vote (“it’s administrative”) last year was almost jovial in his attitude. It was like his mind was totally made up beforehand. I wonder if results would be different with a minority woman judge.
The 49ers were NEVER guaranteed a set amount of RDA money. The voters said UP TO $40 million, not exactly that amount. I fact, the 49ers agreed to forego the amount all together if the funds were not available at the end of the RDA in 2026.
The agreements in discussion were NEVER planned nor discussed until the Governor announced that redevelopment agencies were going away. The agreements should be declared invalid because they are disguised as agreements when they are just 49ers greed and Council with red ‘n gold stars in their eyes paying back favors.
The stadium cash is ours…. YET AGAIN. Oh I could roll in it like hog slop. Most NFL owners do, you know.
Remember taxpayers, 1-877-STADIUM-CASH is the only number you need to remember!
The whole RDA program was a giant scam, Brown was smart to put an end to it, but existing agreements do have merit.
“Biased, white middle aged judges”? NIce one SCJay.
thanks for the clarification SCtaxpayer, but i would still like to see some documentation about how the left over RDA money will be split up by these O board. Please provide a link…
I thought complaining about middle aged 49er fan judges was bad but now we need a woman minority judge… lol
I guess minorities and women do not like football cause if they did they could not be judges.
Judges are always fair and impartial and never have their fingers in the wind (in addition to excreting marble).
The 49ers haven’t gamed the system every step of the way.
The average resident of Santa Clara (of which I am one) will benefit from the stadium.
Got it now.
Residents need to know who their Masters are. Residents need to obey and not complain.
You will pay for the new stadium out of your own pocket, it doesn’t matter if you like football or not.
You will support and pay the high prices to go to a game.
You will wear the SF 49ers product.
You will continue to pay until the Masters tell you to stop.
You Santa Clara Slaves need to appreciate your Masters.
PS
We have already sold out the stadium.