(a) (1) The Voluntary Investment Program Fund is hereby created within the State Treasury, for the receipt of voluntary deposits from local entities.

(2) For purposes of this section, a “local entity” includes, but is not limited to, any city, county, school district, or special district.

(b) Each local entity that is approved by its governance body to deposit moneys in the fund shall deposit no less than a total of two hundred million dollars ($200,000,000). The total amount of moneys that may be deposited in the fund from all eligible sources shall not exceed, at any point in time, a total of ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000), or lesser amount as determined by the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer.

(c) The terms and conditions of deposits made into the fund shall be set by the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer. Those terms shall include, but not be limited to, the size of the deposit from a particular local entity, the length of time those moneys shall be held in deposit in the fund, the availability of funds for withdrawal by the local entity depositing the funds, and the annual rate of interest paid on deposits, as described in subdivision (e). However, the director and the Treasurer may only permit deposits that do not exceed funds needed to address an actual or anticipated cash shortfall in the General Fund not exceeding the amounts of existing appropriations, including continuing and continuous appropriations, to which resulting proceeds are to be applied.

(d) Moneys held in the Fund shall be invested by the Treasurer in investments authorized pursuant to Sections 16430 and 16480 through the Pooled Money Investment Account, and whenever the Controller determines that moneys in the General Fund, after allowing for internal borrowing from other funds are, or are expected to be, insufficient for the payment of all appropriations made by the Legislature which are to be paid out of the moneys in the General Fund, the State Controller may, based upon his or her estimate of the probable income to the General Fund during the then fiscal year and the probable dates of receipt thereof, may draw a demand or demands against appropriations made from the General Fund to be paid in the then current fiscal year prior to the receipt of the income, and deliver the demand or demands to the Treasurer. The Treasurer shall register the demand or demands for nonpayment and may borrow moneys from the fund in an amount or amounts that is no greater than the demand or demands provided. The borrowing, together with the interest owed upon the account thereon, shall be paid exclusively from moneys in the General Fund on probable or reasonably anticipated revenues that are expected to be forthcoming within a short period of time, but not excepting recourse to internal borrowing from other funds in the event insufficient moneys are available from the General Fund. Repayment of any of those borrowings shall be considered a priority payment, equivalent to any other loan repayment made from the General Fund to another state fund.

(e) Notwithstanding any other law, the rate of interest to be earned by the depositors shall be the base apportionment rate based on their pro rata share of the earnings of the Pooled Money Investment Account on a quarterly basis at the end of each quarter plus an enhanced amount. The pro rata share shall be determined by a dollar day participation. The base apportionment rate applied to dollar day participation in the fund shall be the quarter-to-date average yield of the Pooled Money Investment Account for the current quarter. The enhancement amount paid to depositors in the fund shall be determined by the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer, and shall be added to the base rate earned by the Pooled Money Investment Account at the time the apportionment is made. The total interest cost described in this subdivision shall not exceed that provided for in paragraph (1) of subdivision (d) of Section 16731.

(f) Notwithstanding Section 13340, moneys in the fund are hereby continuously appropriated for payment of interest expenditures to depositors calculated in accordance with subdivision (e), other related expenses as determined by the Department of Finance, and return of deposits to depositors according to terms and conditions set by the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer. The amounts paid for interest and other related expenses shall be attributable to the fiscal year in which the borrowing occurred which is also the fiscal year upon which the appropriations against which the demand or demands were made.

(g) The Department of Finance shall determine the budget items to be used for the recording and reporting of interest expenditures and other related expenses pursuant to this section.

(h) Deposits in the fund shall be tracked separately for each participant in the state’s accounting system, and shall be deemed to be assets of each participant. These assets shall be reflected as such on each participant’s individual financial statements.

(i) These deposits are, and may only be used, to cover short-term cash needs of the state and are, and shall be, in compliance with the provisions of Proposition 58 of March 2004 as stated in subdivision (c), Section 1.3 of Article XVI of the California Constitution. Deposits and borrowing from the fund shall comply with the state’s debt limit restrictions.

(j) Actions by the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer, in implementing and administering the investment program provided for in this section and the Treasurer’s and Controller’s actions in borrowing from the fund shall be exempt from the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3).

(k) Upon projection of insufficient cash in the General Fund, the Director of Finance, in consultation with the Treasurer and Controller, may utilize provisions similar to Section 16381 to facilitate the implementation of the program.

(Added by Stats. 2012, Ch. 44, Sec. 1. (SB 1033) Effective June 27, 2012.)