By Dustin Gardner, POLITICO
BUDGET GAP: Consumer Watchdog has pointed out a nearly $300 million discrepancy in the balance of the state’s CRV fund — the account that holds the nickel and dime deposits that Californians pay when they buy beverages sold in bottles and cans, POLITICO’s Dustin Gardiner reports.
The group sent a letter to CalRecycle and lawmakers this week pointing out the gap.
Both CalRecycle and the Department of Finance said that Newsom’s budget was released before the balance in the beverage container fund could be updated — a fact that his budget explains in a footnote. The agencies said they are working to correct the projected total.
But Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court said the state has a pattern of downplaying the size of its bottle deposit surplus. CalRecycle similarly understated the size of its CRV surplus in 2022, which the agency largely attributed to a pandemic-era accounting backlog. “The misrepresentation is not a mere mistake,” Court wrote in the letter. “That allows (the Finance Dept.) to more freely borrow against the fund.”
H.D. Palmer, spokesperson for Newsom’s Department of Finance, said Court’s letter was full of “erroneous accusations,” and that the department was transparent that it wasn’t able to update the fund amount before Newsom’s budget was released.
“Moreover, if one actually wanted to borrow more money from a fund, one wouldn’t conspire to artificially depress the balance from which one could borrow,” Palmer said.
