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Supervisors to vote on legal challenge of $150 assessment on rural properties
By Billie Jo Jannen
For East County Magazine
July 29, 2011 (San Diego’s East County)--As County supervisors mull a possible lawsuit over a state plan to bill rural property owners $150 per dwelling, CalFire officials say the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection will take public input through Aug. 22 on how and which rural residents will be charged the new fee.
Passed last month as part of the state’s “balanced budget,” the fire fee bill forces property owners to pay up to $150 each on on habitable structures on private property in the state area of responsibility.It alleges that rural residents receive a “disproportionate benefit” from CalFire’s efforts and that the presence of private homes on private property in the rural region interferes with CalFire’s ability to fight fires.
According to CalFire spokeswoman Julie Hutchinson, the hastily drafted bill will go back to the legislature to have a number of questions clarified, including who should be billed and how the money will be used. Also subject to clarification is the question of whether, and to what extent, residents who are in an existing fire district should have to pay the fee.
The bill, as written, makes no exception for residents in fire protection districts or residents of counties that already fund large portions of CalFire’s budget. San Diego County, for instance, gives CalFire $15 million a year for structure protection assistance, in addition to funding the community resources that CalFire now controls. In addition, some counties pay extra under Amador agreements that keep state fire stations staffed during the portion of the year that CalFire would ordinarily be partially dark.
This, among other problems, has District 2 Supervisor Dianne Jacob and District 3 Supervisor Pam Slater-Price in arms.The two supervisors have drafted a request, which was placed on the agenda for the Aug. 2 meeting of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, to review an extensive list of proposed actions.
“We have grave concerns about the cuts to CalFire’s budget compounded by a $150 fire prevention fee that seems to do nothing to mitigate the loss of boots on the ground and equipment needed to adequately protect San Diego residents from another firestorm,” according to the four-page board letter.
“We know the law does not guarantee that the amount of funds collected locally will be used to provide services locally.”
In addition to imposing the new tax, the legislature has made deep cuts to CalFire’s budget. It has reduced firefighter staffing on ground engines, terminated the contract for the big 11,000-gallon DC-10 and is considering elimination of five firefighting bulldozers, which are able to work on cutting fire lines at night when aircraft are unable to function.
“This fee is victimizing many residents who lost their homes (in the 2003 and 2007 firestorms) and would be the same as burning them twice,” Jacob said. “This fee amounts to double taxation because rural property owners are already paying for fire protection through their property taxes … many are paying additional taxes and benefit assessment fees to their local fire districts.”
Jacob and Slater-Price ask that board of supervisors vote to oppose the fee in any way possible, including legal challenge, opposition of legislative efforts to impose additional fees or taxes on structures in the SRA, support of legislation to repeal the bill and opposition of efforts to implement of the fee.
CalFire is charged with the task of forwarding a list of property owners to the California Board of Equalization, which will then send assessment bills to the property owners identified and collect the money.
CalFire officials responsible for targeting the properties to be billed are scrambling to do their part by the Sept. 1 deadline given them under the new law: “We didn’t know about this bill … until the legislature passed it,” Hutchinson said. “We don’t have all the groundwork in place.”
Hutchinson said that CalFire has already started work on obtaining parcel information in the SRA overlay, but that it is a challenging task. While property ownership information is public record, each county has its own way of presenting that information. Addresses are not always provided at the same place online as parcel numbers and parcel information may or may not include all the structures on the property. Property addresses are also not the same as mailing addresses for all property owners.
Hutchinson said it is unlikely that Amador counties would be excluded from the fee based on the Amador contract alone, but that the forestry board and legislature will have to decide whether residents inside county- or community-funded fire districts should be billed for the fee.
“At this point, any property in the SRA will be billed,” Hutchinson said. A map of the SRA may be viewed on the board of forestry website, located at www.bof.fire.ca.gov. Hutchinson said the board is working on an interactive version of the map that will allow property owners to enter their addresses to see whether their properties are eligible to pay the fee.
Although the legislature used $50 million in projected revenues from the tax to balance the budget, Hutchinson said that gray areas in the bill could slow down billing until well into the fall: “Nobody is getting a bill right now,” she said.
The bill, as currently written, routes the money, less administrative costs for the board of equalization, specifically into fire prevention activities. A rewrite of the bill could expand that to include firefighting costs.
The bill was passed on a simple majority vote as part of the state budget that Democrat lawmakers passed down party lines. This, alone, makes the new fee constitutionally questionable, according to President Jon Coupal of Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association. Coupal said the HJTA is preparing a lawsuit to challenge the fee, but would not reveal details about its contents, nor which county it would be filed in.
California law allows lawmakers to pass user fees on a simple majority vote, but imposition of taxes requires a 2/3 supermajority. User fees may be imposed only on people who receive a disproportionate benefit from a public service or facility, such as campers in state parks or hunters, fishermen and drivers, who must buy licenses for their activities. Few, if any, user fees have been imposed on people just for living in a particular place.
Hutchinson said that comment letters and emails to the board of forestry should have “SRA fees” in the subject line. Comments may be addressed to the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, Attn: George Gentry, Executive Officer, P.O. Box 944246, Sacramento, CA 94244-2460. Comments may also be faxed to (916) 653-0989 or emailed to board.public.comments@fire.ca.gov
The deadline for comment submission is 5 p.m., Monday, Aug. 22, 2011. After that, the forestry board will forward its recommendations to the legislature for review and vote.
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