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Article 2. Traffic Congestion Relief Fund of California Government Code >> Division 3. >> Title 2. >> Part 5.3. >> Chapter 4.5. >> Article 2.

(a) The Traffic Congestion Relief Fund is hereby created in the State Treasury. The fund shall include deposits of funds provided in the annual Budget Act, provided from the Transportation Investment Fund established under Section 7104 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, or provided under any other statute. Notwithstanding Section 13340, the money in the fund is hereby continuously appropriated to the department, without regard to fiscal years, as follows:
  (1) For allocation by the department, as directed by the commission pursuant to Section 14556.20, to the department and other regional and local transportation entities for the projects listed in Article 5 (commencing with Section 14556.40).
  (2) For allocation by the commission to the funding exchange program authorized by Section 182.8 of the Streets and Highways Code.
  (b) (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon order of the Department of Finance, all or some of the state agencies collecting revenue for, or spending from, the Traffic Congestion Relief Fund shall adjust budgeting, accounting, and reporting systems and documents so that unliquidated encumbrances, payables, and other accruals are not reflected in the fund balance in the Governor's Budget fund condition display or the fund balance in the financial statements submitted to the Controller for the Budgetary/Legal Basis Annual Report.
  (2) For the purposes of the Governor's Budget, the balance of cash advanced from the Traffic Congestion Relief Fund to the Transportation Revolving Account, as jointly determined by the Department of Finance and the state agencies referenced in paragraph (1), shall be deemed as resources and cash available to the Traffic Congestion Relief Fund for budgeting purposes.
  (3) This method shall be effective with the 2013-14 Governor's Budget development process and may be applied to the 2011-12 data.
The purpose of this article is to relieve traffic congestion, provide additional funding for local street and road deferred maintenance, and provide additional transportation capacity in high growth areas of the state. The Traffic Congestion Relief Fund is intended to contribute five billion three hundred thirteen million nine hundred thousand dollars ($5,313,900,000), above the traditional transportation funding provided by the state, towards the funding of projects listed in Article 5 (commencing with Section 14556.40) and the deferred maintenance program authorized in Section 2182 of the Streets and Highways Code. This funding commitment is intended to be combined with other state, local, federal, and private funds to complete and operate the transportation improvements identified in Article 5 (commencing with Section 14556.40). Funds needed to meet the contribution commitment described in this section are intended to be provided as follows:
  (a) The sum of one billion five hundred million dollars ($1,500,000,000) from the General Fund, as appropriated by Section 20 of Chapter 91 of the Statutes of 2000, to the fund.
  (b) The sum of five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) from the transfer of the sales and use tax on motor vehicle fuel during the 2000-01 fiscal year, as required under Section 7102 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, as amended by Section 10 of Chapter 91 of the Statutes of 2000.
  (c) The sum of six hundred seventy-eight million dollars ($678,000,000) is intended to be provided in each of four successive fiscal years, commencing with the 2003-04 fiscal year, plus the sum of six hundred one million nine hundred thousand dollars ($601,900,000) in the 2007-08 fiscal year, from the Transportation Investment Fund.
(a) (1) To the extent necessary to provide adequate cash to fund projected expenditures under this chapter, the Director of Finance may authorize, by executive order, the transfer of not more than one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000), as an interest free loan, from the Motor Vehicle Account in the State Transportation Fund to the TCRF, and the transfer of any available funds, as an interest free loan, from the General Fund to the TCRF. Loans from the Motor Vehicle Account may be made no sooner than July 1, 2004, and shall be repaid no later than July 1, 2007. The Director of Finance shall not authorize a loan from the Motor Vehicle Account, and shall promptly require the repayment of any outstanding balance owed to that account, if the funds are needed in the account to make expenditures authorized in the annual Budget Act and by any other appropriations made by the Legislature.
  (2) To provide cash needed for expenditures on projects listed in Section 14556.40, the Legislature may authorize loans from the Public Transportation Account or the State Highway Account to the TCRF through the annual Budget Act. The Legislature may also authorize the State Highway Account to expend funds on behalf of projects listed in Section 14556.40 and those expenditures shall constitute a loan to the TCRF. Loans from the Public Transportation Account shall not exceed a cumulative total of two hundred eighty million dollars ($280,000,000), and loans from the State Highway Account shall not exceed a cumulative total of six hundred fifty-four million dollars ($654,000,000).
  (b) The Director of Finance shall order the repayment of the loans authorized under this section under those terms and conditions that the director deems appropriate, upon determining that there are adequate funds available for that purpose in the TCRF and that repayment will not jeopardize the availability of money needed to fund approved and projected expenditures under this chapter. All loans from the Public Transportation Account and the State Highway Account shall be repaid at the time the TCRF is repaid pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (c). Upon the request of the commission or the Director of Finance, the department shall provide a report, for purposes of this subdivision, projecting the cash needs of the projects approved under this chapter.
  (c) (1) Money in the TCRF derived from the General Fund and not currently needed for expenditures on the projects listed in Section 14556.40 may be loaned to the General Fund through the annual Budget Act.
  (2) Upon making a determination that funds in the TCRF are not adequate to support expected cash expenditures for the listed projects, the Director of Finance, by executive order, shall require that funds loaned to the General Fund under paragraph (1) be repaid to the TCRF. All these loans shall be repaid upon the sale of bonds authorized by Article 6.5 (commencing with Section 63048.6) of Chapter 2 of Division 1 of Title 6.7. If the proceeds from those bonds are insufficient to repay the funds loaned to the General Fund under paragraph (1), the remaining amount of those loans shall be repaid from future tribal gaming revenues, additional securitizations against those revenues, or from the General Fund.
  (3) Interest at the rate earned by the Surplus Money Investment Fund shall be paid to the TCRF from the General Fund with respect to the cumulative amount loaned from the State Highway Account to the TCRF pursuant to paragraph (2) of subdivision (a) that is in excess of one hundred eighty million dollars ($180,000,000). The amount of this interest obligation shall be calculated annually on the balance of this portion of this outstanding loan amount. All interest on the loan shall be paid in full at the time the TCRF is repaid pursuant to paragraph (2), and the interest payment shall be transferred from the TCRF to the State Highway Account.
  (d) Funds loaned to the TCRF under this section shall be used for purposes consistent with any restrictions on uses of those funds imposed under the California Constitution or by statute. The department shall identify specific projects to which those funds may properly be applied and shall propose that application of funds to the commission. The commission shall designate projects to receive those funds through the processes described in Article 3 (commencing with Section 14556.10) and Article 4 (commencing with Section 14556.25). The department shall report periodically to the commission and the Department of Finance on the expenditure of those funds.
  (e) As long as loan balances authorized by this section are outstanding, the Director of Transportation shall report to the commission the amounts of loans outstanding with respect to each fund or account as of the last business day of each quarter.
  (f) This section shall become inoperative upon full repayment of loans authorized by this section, and shall be repealed on January 1 of the following year.