New local streets and roads revenue estimates reflect a rebound from last year’s peak pandemic impacts

The League of California Cities has released new city and county local streets and roads revenue estimates. This update contains individual city and county estimates for the current fiscal year, 2021-22, and the upcoming budget year, 2022-23. Cities and counties should use these estimates for budgeting.

Overall local streets and roads allocations to cities and counties from the Highway Users Tax Account and the Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account are projected to climb 14.8% in the current fiscal year, 2021-22, above last year, reflecting a rebound from peak impacts of the pandemic in 2020. 

For the budget year 2022-23, allocations are projected to grow 10.8% over the current year. This presumes that if the scheduled July 1 cost-of-living fuel tax increase is suspended, the Legislature will backfill any revenue impacts to local governments as leaders have pledged. 

The estimates are based on new statewide tax revenue estimates released by the California Department of Finance with the Governor’s 2022-23 Proposed Budget. The county estimates were prepared in collaboration with the California State Association of Counties.

The revenue estimates, along with a detailed explanation of local streets and roads revenue and allocations, may be found at CaliforniaCityFinance.com as part of the California Local Streets and Roads Funding Explainer. The document also includes guidance for long-term projections of local streets and roads revenue estimates.