Talk is cheap. And so, it seems, are California’s governor and Legislature.

Checks were sent this month to counties, including Kern  , to reimburse local governments for the cost of participating in a long-time, highly successful agricultural land preservation program.

Instead of the $4.7 million Kern County should be receiving under a long-established state Williamson Act  formula, the county will be receiving only $133.22. That’s right. I did not drop a zero or two. Kern County will be getting what is equivalent to a dinner tab at a good restaurant for its efforts to preserve about 1.6 million acres of agricultural land.

Only Fresno County is getting more – a whopping $150.45.

But I guess we should be feeling lucky. Some counties, such as Orange County, received checks for only a penny. No kidding!

By the way, a spokesman for California Controller John Chiang estimates that it costs 71 cents each to send Williamson Act reimbursement checks. So a penny check to Orange County costs 70 cents more than it’s worth. And then you have to figure in the cost of Orange County processing the check. Don’t even get me started on that one!

This whole fiasco is a sorry result of state government’s fiscal meltdown and its years-long pattern of letting its “pain” roll down to local governments. Governors and legislators pass laws and spend money in Sacramento, then roll the fiscal consequences downhill to cities and counties.

With California’s state budget some $20 billion in the hole, you can bet it will be a long, hot summer in Sacramento and we will see a lot more of this local government rip-off by the time the state’s 2010-11 budget is adopted.

Last year, the Williamson Act was a casualty of these shenanigans. But rather than kill the program altogether, $1,000 was left in the budget to reimburse local governments for the cost of the program. The state checks that have gone out this month reflect the dividing up of this paltry amount.

This contrasts to the $38 million that should have been distributed to help preserve 16.5 million acres of farmland and open space in California.

The Williamson Act, which was authored in 1965 by Kern County Assemblyman John Williamson, provides an economic incentive for farmers to keep farming their land, rather than selling it for residential or commercial development. Owners enter into 10- or 20-year contracts in exchange for a discount on their property tax. Rather than being taxed at the “market rate” – based on the land sprouting houses, rather than crops – it is charged a rate based on the less “valuable” agricultural use.

The state agreed to partially reimburse participating counties for the loss of property tax that resulted from this discount. And it is that agreement that the state reneged on last year.

The Williamson Act is one of California’s most successful agricultural land and open space conservation strategies. It has enabled farmers to keep farming, kept communities from sprawling into prime agricultural land, and helped California maintain its position as the nation’s number one agricultural state.

And that’s where the “cheap talk” comes in. Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators talk a lot about “global warming” and controlling “greenhouse gases.” They have placed California on the cutting edge of legislation to curtail our “carbon footprint.”

Yet when it comes to spending a paltry $38 million to support a program that does all of these things, they can’t be bothered.

To keep this $38 million in perspective, note that it’s a spit in the bucket compared to the state’s $20 billion budget hole. And it is dwarfed by other “sacred” tax breaks, such as the $300 million to help first-time homebuyers.

Withdrawal of the state’s reimbursement from the Williamson Act has prompted some counties to place a moratorium on new contracts with landowners and to notify others that their contracts are not being renewed. Commendably, Kern County supervisors have not gone down this ill-advised path.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators must restore state support for the Williamson Act in the 2010-11 budget. California’s environment and economy depend on it.

This article by John Hardisty (Jack) of Bakersfield appeared first in the June 24, 2010 edition of The Bakersfield Californian. Hardisty  is a planning  consultant. As Kings County’s deputy planning director in the 1970s, he administered that county’s Williamson Act contracts. Hardisty retired in 2004 as theBakersfield city development services director.