As businesses and workers around San Francisco struggle to keep up with the continually ballooning costs of the Bay Area and maintain economic stability in the throes of a pandemic, members of the Board of Supervisors are pushing to establish a public bank.
Under the terms of new state legislation announced Thursday, a California public bank would be established to help with a more equitable economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. Assembly Bill 310, authored by Assembly Members Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, and David Chiu, D-San Francisco, would relocate “idle” funds from the state’s “checking account” into the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, or IBank, by moving 10% of the state’s Pooled Money Investment Account (PMIA) into the IBank’s loan fund.
The PMIA is essentially an investment vehicle for taxpayer money used by the state treasurer to manage the state’s cash flow.
Using these funds and expanded authority under the legislation, the IBank would be able to directly lend funds and offer credit to community banks, credit unions, municipalities and small businesses struggling because of the economic downturn…
