BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1053|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1053
Author: Cooley (D)
Amended: 5/1/14 in Senate
Vote: 27 - Urgency
PRIOR VOTES NOT RELEVANT
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FINANCE COMMITTEE : 6-0, 4/30/14
AYES: Wolk, Knight, DeSaulnier, Hernandez, Liu, Walters
NO VOTE RECORDED: Beall
SUBJECT : Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District: return of
improperly
collected money
SOURCE : Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District
DIGEST : This bill allows the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire
District to return money improperly collected from some district
taxpayers from 2005 through 2012.
ANALYSIS : Proposition 218 (1996) established that a tax
levied by a special-purpose district is a special tax requiring
two-thirds voter approval. State law allows a district's
legislative body to levy a special tax with two-thirds voter
approval.
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District (District) is a
special district organized pursuant to the Fire Protection
District Law of 1987. The District serves a population of over
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640,000 in a 417 square mile service area within Sacramento
County, including the cities of Citrus Heights and Rancho
Cordova and several unincorporated communities. The District
was formed when the Sacramento County Fire Protection District
and the American River Fire Protection District merged on
December 1, 2000.
Existing law allows a local government to refund money from
parcel taxes that appear on the property tax bill if those taxes
were erroneously collected, but generally prohibits a local
government from refunding erroneously collected parcel taxes in
response to a claim that is filed more than four years after the
date of the payment that is to be refunded.
This bill:
1.Allows the District, notwithstanding any other law, to return
to a payor any money the District improperly collected from
the payor due to a clerical error in the District's
administration of the Special Fire Tax for the Rancho Murieta
and Sloughhouse area, levied from 2005 to 2012, inclusive.
2.Specifies that its provisions remain in effect only until
January 1, 2015, and as of that date are repealed, unless a
later enacted statute, that is enacted before January 1, 2015,
deletes or extends that date.
3.Contains legislative findings and declarations that specify
the ways in which the bill serves a public purpose.
Background
More than two-thirds of the voters in the Sloughhouse and Rancho
Murieta areas within the American River Fire Protection District
approved Measure Q on the November 7, 2000 general election
ballot. That ballot measure authorized the District to raise
revenues for fire suppression and emergency ambulance services
by levying an annual parcel tax at a rate not to exceed $100 per
parcel. Last year, the District discovered that it was levying
the tax on approximately 3,800 parcels of property that should
not have been subject to the tax. The District erroneously
began collecting taxes from these parcels in the 2005-2006
fiscal year.
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District officials have corrected the District's error on the
tax roll and established a claims procedure to allow taxpayers
to claim refunds of erroneously collected taxes. Although
District officials want to refund money erroneously collected
from taxpayers since 2005, the four-year statute of limitations
in current law only allows refunds for taxes that were paid
within the last four years. District officials want the
Legislature to authorize the District to refund parcel tax
revenues collected more than four years ago.
Comments
State law requires that refund claims for parcel taxes that
appear on the property tax bill must be presented no more than
four years after the taxes are paid, the District can only
reimburse taxpayers for taxes that the District collected during
fiscal years 2009-10 through 2012-13. This bill allows the
District to provide full refunds to taxpayers from whom the
District collected money during fiscal years 2005-06 through
2008-09, notwithstanding the four-year statute of limitations
that usually applies to parcel tax refund claims. This bill
specifies that the exemption from the standard four-year statute
of limitations applies only to the District's Special Fire Tax
for the Rancho Murieta and Sloughhouse area and will be
automatically repealed after this year. This short-lived and
narrowly-focused exemption upholds basic principles of fairness
and fosters public trust in government by allowing the District
to return all of the money that it erroneously collected from
taxpayers.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local:
No
SUPPORT : (Verified 5/2/14)
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District (source)
California Professional Firefighters
AB:e 5/2/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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