BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1188
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 8, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
K.H. "Katcho" Achadjian, Chair
AB 1188 (Bradford) - As Introduced: February 22, 2013
SUBJECT : Fire protection: general obligation bonds.
SUMMARY : Makes changes to the voting requirements for bonded
indebtedness for fire protection districts contingent upon the
passage and voter approval of Assembly Constitutional Amendment
3 (Campos). Specifically, this bill :
1)Authorizes a fire protection district board, if 55% of the
voters approve, to adopt resolutions to incur indebtedness in
the form of general obligation (GO) bonds to fund specified
public safety buildings, facilities, and equipment pursuant to
Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 3.
2)Conditions the provisions of this bill on the passage and
voter approval of ACA 3 at the general election.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the Fire Protection District Law of 1987.
2)Authorizes fire protection districts to adopt a resolution, if
the board determines it is necessary to incur general
obligation bonded indebtedness of the acquisition or
construction or any real property or other capital expense or
for funding or refunding outstanding indebtedness, to call an
election on a proposition to incur indebtedness and issue GO
bonds.
3)Requires the board to include specified information on the
resolution and to hold elections pursuant to the Uniform
District Election Law.
4)Authorizes the board to adopt resolutions to issue bonds with
two-thirds voter approval.
5)Authorizes the board to issue bonds in any amount, if it does
not exceed the limit approved by the voters.
6)Authorizes cities, counties, and special districts to impose a
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general tax for general governmental purposes with the
approval of a majority of the voters.
7)Authorizes cities, counties, and special districts to impose a
special tax for specified purposes with the approval of
two-thirds of the voters.
8)Authorizes school districts, community college districts, or
county offices of education to incur school bonded
indebtedness with the approval of 55% of the voters voting on
the bond measure, requires bond proceeds only be used for
purposes specified in the Constitution, and requires an audit
to ensure that the funds have been expended only on the
specific projects listed.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS :
1)In addition to the two-thirds voter requirement in the
California Constitution for bonded indebtedness, the Health
and Safety Code contains the same voter approval requirement
for fire protection districts to issue GO bonds. This bill
changes the voter threshold for fire protection districts from
two-thirds to 55% to incur indebtedness in the form of GO
bonds, to fund specified projects defined in ACA 3 (Campos).
The enactment of this bill is contingent upon the passage and
subsequent voter approval of ACA 3, which is currently pending
in this Committee. This bill is the statutory companion
measure to ACA 3 which seeks to lower the voter threshold for
special taxes and GO bonds to fund specified public safety
projects. This bill is sponsored by the California
Professional Firefighters.
2)The author argues that "The statutory vice-grip of a
supermajority two-thirds voter threshold for raising taxes and
incurring bond indebtedness coupled with the limitations on
levying fee assessments has crippled the ability for local
governments and special districts to provide essential
services to protect the public."
3)Proposition 39, which was narrowly approved by 53% of
California voters in 2000, provided an exception to the
two-thirds vote requirement for special taxes by authorizing
the passage of local school bond measures by approval of 55%
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of the voters. Article XIII of the California Constitution
allows for bonded indebtedness for a school district,
community college district, or county office of education to
fund the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or
replacement of school facilities, including the furnishing and
equipping of school facilities, among other provisions, if
approved by 55% of the voters. This section of the
Constitution also requires that the bond proceeds be used only
for the purposes listed, and requires annual independent
auditing to ensure that funds have been expended on the
specific projects listed. ACA 3 (Campos) mirrors some of
these provisions in the Constitution for school districts, and
instead, provides that a city, county, or special district can
incur bonded indebtedness for specified public safety
facilities, buildings, or equipment, if 55% of the voters
approve.
ACA 3 (Campos) allows a city, county, or special district to
incur indebtedness in the form of GO bonds to be adopted by
55% of the voters to fund specified projects for the exclusive
use of public safety personal employed by a city, county, or
special district as follows. The construction,
reconstruction, rehabilitation or replacement of buildings or
facilities for emergency response, police or sheriff
personnel, the acquisition or lease of real property for those
buildings or facilitates, the purchase, lease, rent,
maintenance, or repair of fire suppression or emergency
response equipment or interoperable communications equipment
for fire or emergency response personnel, and the purchase,
lease, rent, maintenance, or repair of interoperable
communications equipment for police or sheriff personnel. ACA
3 also amends the California Constitution to lower the
constitutional vote requirement from two-thirds to 55% for the
approval of a special tax to provide funding for fire,
emergency response, police, or sheriff services.
4)According to the sponsor, "Fire districts throughout
California continue to implement hard dollar cuts in core
public safety services as a means to balancing ever-shrinking
budgets. For example, in December of 2012, the Contra Costa
County Fire Protection District slashed $3 million from their
budget by closing four fire stations and may be forced to
close additional fire stations during the next fiscal year.
Also, this past December, the Rancho Adobe Fire Protection
District instituted 'brown-outs' - closing down one of their
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three fire stations on a rotating basis after their parcel tax
measure, Measure Z, failed when it received 62.8% approval
from voters. And, in June of 2012, the Higgins Fire
Protection District in Placer County started closing one of
their three fire departments at a time and response times have
doubled to over 12 minutes."
According to An Overview of Local Revenue Measures in
California Since 2001 by Michael Coleman, author of
CaliforniaCityFinance.com (California Local Government Finance
Almanac), 13 GO bond measures from 2002-2009 were placed on
the ballot in cities, counties, and special districts for
fire, emergency medical services, and police. Among the 13
measures, seven passed and six failed. Among the six that
failed, four received more than 55% of the votes. Most
recently, in November 2012 the El Medio Fire Protection
District (Butte County), Measure M failed passage with 56.5%
of the vote.
5)In opposition to the bill, the California Taxpayers
Association argues that "Lowering the vote threshold
unnecessarily erodes long-standing taxpayer protections for
the sake of raising revenue, as many local bond measures are
passed with the existing two-thirds requirement."
6)There are several measures currently pending in the Assembly
and Senate that seek to lower the constitutional vote
requirement to a 55% vote for special taxes and bonded
indebtedness, including ACA 8 (Blumenfield), SCA 4 (Liu), SCA
7 (Wolk), SCA 8 (Corbett), SCA 9 (Corbett), and SCA 11
(Hancock).
In the past five years numerous measures would have revised
constitutional voting thresholds for different purposes,
including ACA 23 (Perea, 2012), ACA 18 (Swanson, 2011), SCA 5
(Simitian, 2011), ACA 4 (Blumenfield, 2010), ACA 9 (Huffman,
2010), ACA 10 (Torlakson, 2010), ACA 15 (Arambula, 2010), SCA
6 (Simitian, 2010), SCA 12 (Kehoe, 2009), ACA 10 (Feuer,
2008), SCA 18 (Torlakson, 2008), and SCA 21 (Kehoe, 2008),
none of which were enacted.
7)Support arguments : Supporters argue that law enforcement
services for the public should be taken seriously and with the
shifts of state prisoners and juvenile wards, the need for
additional facilities will be and has rapidly become
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compelling.
Opposition arguments : According to the California Association
of Realtors, "the expenditure of public monies should be held
to the higher two-thirds vote requirement and that threshold
should not be diminished."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Professional Firefighters [SPONSOR]
Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs
Los Angeles Police Protective League
Los Angeles Probation Officers' Union, AFSCME, Local 685
Riverside Sheriffs' Association
Opposition
California Realtors Association
California Taxpayers Association
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Analysis Prepared by : Misa Yokoi-Shelton / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958