I am proud to report that the City of Irvine has again - for the 3rd straight year - been ranked as the No. 1 City in the United States in Fiscal Strength by T ruth in Accounting (TIA), a nonprofit organization that "cuts through politicization and accounting tricks, presenting transparent and nonpartisan figures of government finances."

The Truth in Accounting ranking of America's largest 75 cities calculated how a city would fare financially after all the bills are paid. Irvine was given a surplus score of $4,100 per taxpayer, earning the distinction as the  most fiscally healthy large city in the United States.

The key findings of the report regarding Irvine were:

You can read the report on Irvine here and read the full report here.

We were also ranked No. 1 by Truth in Accounting in 2018 and 2017.

I am extremely proud of these awards, which reflect the strong commitment I've made to assuring Irvine's fiscal health and stability, as well as the commitment of my City Council colleagues and City Staff.

Most important to me is the fact that our City is truly serving its residents with fiscal responsibility and financial transparency.

I ran for City Council on a platform of using my skills as a business attorney to safeguard every public dollar, and I have kept that promise by making sure that Irvine is financially transparent and doesn't spend more than it can afford. 

I have made it my mission to make our City's budget truly transparent and free from any obfuscations or accounting tricks - and I am tremendously proud that Irvine has received this prestigious non-partisan award as America's most fiscally healthy city in every year that I have served on the City Council.

Government transparency and fiscal responsibility should be neither a conservative nor a liberal idea, but appeal to both, as we strive to address increasing social needs with limited resources. 

In the video, I talk about the crucial role that ICLT and I played in the passage of new legislation, SB 196, which ICLT and I worked on with Senators Jim Beall, Mike McGuire, and Bob Wieckowski to pass in Sacramento, and which has now been signed into law by the Governor, allows properties slated for affordable rental homes to get a tax exemption sooner, saving nonprofit builders between millions of dollars that can instead go toward building more affordable homes.

The new law also extends this property tax break to land for owner-occupied affordable home projects.  As I told the Orange County Register, "It's really hard to build these [affordable housing] projects. You have to have a lot of funding, and property taxes can take a significant bite out of that. Even if it didn't prevent us from doing the [Salerno] project, it lowered the number of units we could do."  Now that's been changed.  Under the new law, property tax rates will be lower at the outset for below-market rate, affordable housing, making it  much easier and more practical to build more permanently affordable housing for more people in need.

Since I joined the ICLT, we've built two below-market rate apartment communities,  Parc Derian and Doria, for families making no more than 80 percent of the area's median household income; some residents earn less than 30 percent of the median income, which in Orange County is $97,900 for a family of four.

The affordable housing we've created with ICLT profoundly and positively impacts the health and education outcomes for hundreds of people. 

That's why I volunteer to serve as Chair of the Irvine Community Land Trust. The affordable housing crisis isn't just about buildings. 

We're building communities for all the people who desperately need a place to live, including children who need a positive environment to thrive.

If approved, there would be 11 group homes in this small community, all operated by the same owner, housing up to 66 children. At a cost of more than $1,000 per child per day, these 11 group homes could generate revenue of about $2 million per month to the owner.