Fresno County supervisors cut their losses this week when they pulled the plug on the county's 20-year-old Redevelopment Agency.

The program, which sought to build new streets and sewers in the foothill town of Friant, proved to be yet another example of why Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the end of state redevelopment: it didn't make financial sense.

The Fresno County agency wasn't as bad as some, which squandered millions. Still, the local agency never built anything while collecting about $970,000 in property taxes during its lifetime. Adding insult to injury, supervisors learned this week that the agency shorted the county about $3,500 on a loan.

When the program started in 1992, the Board of Supervisors -- none of its current members -- had expected the agency to raise millions. The money, which came from a portion of local property taxes, was to go toward a sewage treatment plant that would replace the myriad leaky septics in Friant.

The windfall never came. And what money did come in went toward keeping the agency in business: staff, planning, administration.

All that's left to show for it is about $267,000 that was set aside, per state law, for affordable housing.

County supervisors on Tuesday created a successor program, as the state has required, to liquidate the Redevelopment Agency. Hundreds of redevelopment agencies across California did the same this week.

County officials say they intend to spend the leftover housing funds, which can't be used to pay off the county's operational loan, on housing programs in Friant. If they can't spearhead any housing programs there, they'll look to spend the money in other parts of the county.