BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1188
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1188 (Bradford)
As Introduced February 22, 2013
Majority vote
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 6-2
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|Ayes:|Levine, Alejo, Bradford, | | |
| |Gordon, Mullin, Rendon | | |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Achadjian, Melendez | | |
| | | | |
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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
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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
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 California Constitution, and
requires an audit to ensure that the funds have been expended
only on the specific projects listed.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS : 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 the Assembly Local Government 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.
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
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levying fee assessments has crippled the ability for local
governments and special districts to provide essential services
to protect the public."
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% 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 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.
According to the sponsor, "Fire districts throughout California
continue to implement hard dollar cuts in core public safety
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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 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.
In opposition to this 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."
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) of 2012, ACA 18 (Swanson) of 2011, SCA
5 (Simitian) of 2011, ACA 4 (Blumenfield) of 2010, ACA 9
(Huffman) of 2010, ACA 10 (Torlakson) of 2010, ACA 15 (Arambula)
of 2010, SCA 6 (Simitian) of 2010, SCA 12 (Kehoe) of 2009, ACA
10 (Feuer) of 2008, SCA 18 (Torlakson) of 2008, and SCA 21
(Kehoe) of 2008, none of which were enacted.
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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 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."
Analysis Prepared by : Misa Yokoi-Shelton / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958
FN: 0000485