Public Transportation Account: loan repayment.

Existing law requires the transfer of a specified portion of the sales tax on diesel fuel to the Public Transportation Account, a trust fund in the State Transportation Fund. Existing law requires funds in the account to be allocated to various public transportation and transportation planning purposes, with specified revenues in the account to be allocated by the Controller to specified local transportation agencies for public transportation purposes, pursuant to the State Transit Assistance (STA) Program. Existing law provides for each STA-eligible operator within the jurisdiction of the allocating local transportation agency to receive a proportional share of the revenue-based program funds based on the qualifying revenues of that operator, as defined. The Budget Act of 2013 and the Budget Act of 2014 require the Controller, upon the order of the Director of Finance, to transfer specified amounts totaling up to $55,515,000 as loans from the Public Transportation Account to the High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Fund. This bill would require $54,000,000 from these loans to be repaid to the Public Transportation Account and would provide that these repaid funds are available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to help offset the loss of revenues incurred by transit operators during the COVID-19 pandemic. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.