BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
Senator Patricia Wiggins, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1172 HEARING: 7/1/09
AUTHOR: Galgiani FISCAL: No
VERSION: 6/23/09 CONSULTANT: Detwiler
EASTERN SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY WATER DISTRICT
Background
Local agency formation commissions (LAFCOs) control city
and special district boundaries, including the
consolidation of special districts. If two districts file
substantially similar applications proposing their
consolidation, a LAFCO must approve or conditionally
approve the consolidation. Unless there is significant
protest from the affected registered voters, the LAFCO must
order the consolidation without an election. In their
application to consolidate, the special districts can
propose terms and conditions that spell out the details for
combining the districts, including what happens to
previously authorized charges, fees, assessments, or taxes.
The Stockton-East Water District and the Central San
Joaquin Water Conservation District (San Joaquin County)
are two of the 13 special districts that operate under the
Water Conservation District Law of 1931. The Stockton-East
Water District covers the City of Stockton and
unincorporated communities east to the Stanislaus County
line. Stockton-East sells irrigation water to farmers and
ranchers and wholesales water supplies to the City of
Stockton, the California Water Services Company, and some
smaller agencies. The Central San Joaquin Water
Conservation District serves agricultural areas south of
the Stockton-East Water District and east to the Stanislaus
County line. Both districts have seven-member boards of
directors.
Prompted by local fiscal problems and lawsuits, the
Stockton-East Water District and the Central San Joaquin
Water Conservation District are discussing consolidation.
They want special legislation to make the proposed
consolidation easier.
AB 1172 - 6/23/09 -- Page 2
Proposed Law
I. Governance . Water conservation districts' boards of
directors can have three, five, or seven members who are
elected by registered voters by districts. With
majority-voter approval, a district can change the size of
its board.
Where state law provides for alternative methods of
selecting a district's governing body or for varying the
size of a district's governing body, the LAFCO can
designate how to select the members of the consolidated
district's board.
Unlike many other special districts' principal acts, the
Water Conservation District Law doesn't allow consolidated
districts to have temporarily expanded boards of directors
and allow the LAFCO to sort out the board's subsequent
contraction.
Assembly Bill 1172 allows a local agency formation
commission to increase the number of members on the board
of directors of a consolidated water conservation district
to seven, nine, or eleven. The LAFCO may provide an
alternative schedule for reducing the size of the
consolidated district's board. If the LAFCO doesn't
provide a schedule, AB 1172 reduces the size of the
consolidated district's board of directors as the board
members' terms expire, until the number of members equals
five, seven, or nine, as determined by the LAFCO. If a
vacancy occurs on the consolidated district's temporarily
expanded board, the board may choose not to fill the
vacancy and thereby reduce the number of board members.
II. Eastern San Joaquin County Water Agency . Proposition
218 (1996) imposed constitutional limits on local
officials' ability to impose, increase, and extend taxes,
assessments, and fees, including property-related fees.
When a city or special district that has taxes,
assessments, and fees annexes more territory, a 1999
Attorney General's opinion explained that local officials
can collect those charges in the newly annexed territory
without complying with Proposition 218's complex
requirements for three reasons:
Nothing in the historical record suggests that
Proposition 218's requirements were to be added to the
AB 1172 - 6/23/09 -- Page 3
boundary changes' statutory requirements for public
notices, protest hearings, and possible elections.
The statutes implementing Proposition 218 are
consistent with constitutional requirements.
Trying to mesh the constitutional requirements with
the boundary change statutes "would be virtually
impossible" and "present an administrative imbroglio."
Special legislation allows the Stockton-East Water District
to levy annual "ground water assessments" and charge
customers for "stream-delivered water," but imposes
statutory limits on the amounts (AB 2030, Monagan, 1971).
In addition to the regular powers of water conservation
districts, the Central San Joaquin Water Conservation
District has special statutory authority to collect a
uniform charge per acre. The special legislation set a
minimum annual charge of $10 per parcel and a maximum
charge of up to $2.50 an acre (AB 641, Johnston, 1983).
Officials from the Stockton-East Water District and the
Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District intend to
call their proposed consolidated district the Eastern San
Joaquin County Water District. The consolidated district
may want to collect the Stockton-East Water District's
current ground water assessments and stream-delivered water
from the property in the Central San Joaquin Water
Conservation District. Conversely, the consolidated
district may want to collect the Central San Joaquin Water
Conservation District's current uniform acreage charges
from the property in the Stockton-East Water District.
Assembly Bill 1172 renames the chapter in the Water
Conservation District Law that applies only to the Central
San Joaquin Water Conservation District so that it applies
to the Eastern San Joaquin County Water District. AB 1172
amends the special legislation that applies only to the
Stockton-East Water District so that it applies to the
Eastern San Joaquin County Water District.
The bill allows the Eastern San Joaquin County Water
District to continue to collect acreage charges, ground
water assessments, and stream-delivered water charges in
successive years in accordance with constitutional
requirements, provided that those charges and assessments
followed the statutorily required procedures at the time
that the charges and assessments were established.
AB 1172 - 6/23/09 -- Page 4
These provisions become operative on the effective date set
by the San Joaquin County LAFCO for the consolidation of
the Stockton-East Water District and the Central San
Joaquin Water Conservation District.
Comments
1. Let's get together sometime . California's 3,400
special districts make inviting targets for reformers who
think we have too many local governments. When special
districts are ready to consolidate, legislators should give
them all the help they need. Because the Stockton-East
Water District and the Central San Joaquin Water
Conservation District operate under their own special
statutes in addition to their principal act, they need
extra help in making their proposed consolidation happen.
By spelling out some of the governance and financing
details, AB 1172 smoothes the way for a voluntary
consolidation of two of the largest water districts in San
Joaquin County.
2. Constitutional compliance . The procedures for imposing
fees, charges, and assessments in the Stockton-East Water
District's 1971 special statute and the Central San Joaquin
Water Conservation District's 1983 special statute may not
meet Proposition 218's standards. Nevertheless, the
Districts can continue to collect those revenues because
they were properly established before the voters amended
the constitution. AB 1172 recognizes that the consolidated
district can continue to collect those charges and
assessments. In 1999, an Attorney General's opinion
explained that if a LAFCO conditions its approval of a
boundary change on a requirement that city or special
district collect previously established taxes, benefit
assessments, or property-related fees from the property
being annexed, the requirements of Proposition 218 relating
to taxes, assessments, fees, and charges don't apply. The
same logic would apply if the San Joaquin County LAFCO
imposes terms and conditions on the proposed consolidation
of two water conservation districts into a proposed Eastern
San Joaquin County Water District. The LAFCO can allow the
consolidated district to collect charges and assessments in
areas that have not historically paid those charges and
assessments.
AB 1172 - 6/23/09 -- Page 5
Assembly Actions
Assembly Local Government Committee: 7-0
Assembly Floor: 73-0
Support and Opposition (6/25/09)
Support : Stockton-East Water District, Central San Joaquin
Water Conservation District, Association of California
Water Agencies, San Joaquin County LAFCO.
Opposition : Unknown.