California Reparations Panel Downplays $800 Billion Estimated Price Tag

Eric McDonnell, Chair with the African American Reparations Advisory Committee (middle left) speaks at a reparations rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco, on March 14, 2023. Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

A member of California’s Reparations Task Force has downplayed its $800 billion estimated price tag, despite it being three times the state’s existing budget.

Cheryl Grills, a member of the California Reparations Task Force, told CalMatters in an interview, that the total dollar amount was the “least important piece” of their reparations proposal.

The committee is still trying to sort out on what to pay the direct descendants of black slaves in the United States, who live in California.

The reparations task force said it consulted five economists and policy experts, to estimate the total amount to be doled out to black residents of the state.

The panelists want California to make amends for slavery and discrimination, despite the fact that California, which entered the union in 1850 as a free state, had never allowed slavery.

“We want to make sure that this is presented out in a way that does not reinforce the preoccupation with a dollar figure, which is the least important piece of this,” said Grills.

“It’s important, but it’s the least important in terms of being able to get to a point in our country’s history and in California’s history where we recognize that the harm cuts across multiple areas and domains and that the repair needs to align with that,” she added.

Despite reports that the panel’s plans were unfeasible, Grills doubled down and blamed the media for spending too much time focusing on the total amount.

“It’s really unfortunate. I’m actually sad to see that our news media is not able to nuance better,” she said, continuing, “It’s almost like ‘What’s going to be sensational’ as opposed to what’s important.”

Cost Is Three Times California’s Annual Budget

It is unclear how California would pay for the hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations, which would only be handed out to black residents.

Economists warned in a preliminary report last month that California’s reparations plan could cost the state over $800 billion, even though the total annual budget currently sits at roughly $300 billion.

Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom announced in January that the state was facing a projected budget deficit of $22.5 billion for the coming fiscal year.

Newsom signed a bill to create the task force after the 2020 BLM riots and appointed the majority of the panel’s nine members, of which only one is white.

A few weeks later, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, a state agency that analyzes the budget for the legislature, noted in a subsequent report that the governor’s forecast undercounted the deficit by about $7 billion.

The reparations task force had been previously considering a proposal to give about $360,000 to each of the 1.8 million black residents in Californian, who were descended from slaves before the end of the Civil War, 158 years ago.

The total cost of the initial estimate for the program stood at about $640 billion.

However, the group announced that the total did not include compensation for property that they claimed was seized illegally, or for economic discrimination toward black-owned businesses.

One of Grill’s panel colleagues,' Lisa Holder, President of the Equal Justice Society, a left-wing radical organization, had publicly vowed that the committee’s “recommendations will be breathtaking.”

Legislature to Decide on Amount

Kamilah Moore, the chairperson of the committee, said in March that it was up to the state legislature to determine the total amount for reparations, based on the figures the economists recommended.

“The task force is pretty much done regarding the compensation component,” she told KCRA.

“Our task was to create a methodology for calculation for various forms of compensation that correspond with our findings.”

The bill that created the task force did not instruct the committee to identify funding sources, California Justice Department officials told Fox Business.

“The task force is required by AB 3121 to recommend to the legislature methods for calculating reparations and the scope of reparations,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Newman told CalMatters.

“Based on their recommendations, the legislature is ultimately tasked with implementing these changes into law and figuring out how to pay for it.”

A final report with the panel’s recommendations will be handed to the California legislature on July 1, before voting on the measures and sending them to Newsom to be signed into law.

San Francisco is also currently weighing its own separate reparations proposals.

Meanwhile, activists told the panel at a recent in-person meeting that the proposed $5 million per person, suggested by city councilmembers in San Francisco was “too little” and that millions more should be paid to black residents.

Supporters of reparations are also calling for another set of measures, other than money, including an apology from the state of California for past discrimination against blacks.

It “doesn’t cost a dime, I think that one is as important as the others,” said Moore.