Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, said Monday that Gerald Parsky, a longtime Republican political figure, will chair the tax commission she and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger formed in late October.
The commission, according to the executive order Schwarzenegger signed, will release a report on how to modernize California's tax structure on April 15, 2009.
The commission has gotten off to a slow start, however.
On October 30, Schwarzenegger said, "Speaker Bass and the Senate President pro Tem and I will name 12 commission members in time for them to begin their work in November."
But as of yet no one has been officially named to the commission. Bass said the names of the 12 commissioners would be released this Thursday.
That will give the members just about five months to design the overhaul of the state's tax structure.
Bass noted that a number of the economic experts she had hope to tap were named by President-elect Barack Obama to his economic transition team.
One, Christopher Edley, the dean of the Boalt School of Law at UC Berkeley, has agreed to join California's tax commission, she said.
Parsky, who Bass said would chair the commission, is a longtime Republican activist, who served as chairman of President George W. Bush's campaigns in California in 2000 and 2004.
He is also a veteran of the state's commission bureaucracy. Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he already served as chairman of the state Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission.
That panel, which analyzed how much the state owed in retirement and health benefits to state workers, reported this year that California will need to pay $118.1 billion over the next 30 years to provide health care benefits for retired state workers.
"The clear message is: Don't postpone things. The state clearly needs to lead the way," Parsky said the day the commission's report was released in January 2008. "It may cause choices (to be made). It may cause priorities to be shifted."
Little has been done since.
The tax system overhaul to be led by the new tax commission is one of three priorities Bass layed out when she first ascended to the speakership last spring. The others were balancing the budget and improving the state's foster care system via ballot measure.
The commission's stated goal is not to raise taxes, Bass and the governor have said.
"It is revenue neutral, so we're not looking, at this particular point, for any additional revenues. We are basically just looking for one thing and that is to create stability," Schwarzenegger said at the press conference announcing the commission.
As for who else will be represented, Bass has made clear she wants a diverse group.
"When we looked at forming the commission we wanted to make sure that every sector of our economy was represented," she said in October, "so we want to make sure that we have business leaders there, we want to make sure we have the high-tech industry, agriculture, etc."
Photo: Gerald Parsky testifies at the Capitol in 2005. Credit: Sacramento Bee/ John Decker
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