Despite promises from the California Association of Realtors, backers of Prop. 19, firefighters get nothing.
Dear Northeast Neighbors and friends,
If you missed our meeting last night, I encourage you to watch the video of County Assessor Jeff Prang and Scott Kaufman, Legislative Director for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Of note was the exchange between our two guests:
Scott Kaufman: "I don’t know if you saw it, Assessor Prang, but the Department of Finance came up with their calculation (of Prop 19 revenues) for the County Fund and the Fire Fighting Fund and they found no cost savings to the State, so those funds get zero dollars this year.
Assessor Prang: "I did not see that .. It’s another example of the deception that was intrinsic in that measure .. It was promised as being a measure that was going to create revenue for local governments, it was going to create revenue for fire fighters … the things that Prop 19 did caused harm to people, outweighing the benefits it provides."
HJTA is currently assessing whether to mount a second ballot initiative campaign to restore Prop 19. Many of our members were part of the all-volunteer signature gathering effort that yielded about half a million signatures statewide, only half of what was needed to make it onto the ballot.
Scott Kaufman reminded us that it took HJTA five tries to succeed in getting Prop 13 passed.
Attached is the letter generated from the Dept. of Finance making plain that no financial benefit resulted from Prop 19 even as countless families have been and will continue to be hurt by increased property taxes that are forcing the sales of family homes.
Below is a news article on the failure of Prop 19 and here's the link to video of our meeting last night with Jeff Prang and Scott Kaufman (Thanks Dan!):
Tricia
Proposition 19 a bust on funding new Fire Response Fund
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
https://www.dailynews.com/2022/09/10/proposition-19-a-bust-on-funding-new-fire-response-fund/
PUBLISHED: September 10, 2022
In November 2020, voters narrowly approved Proposition 19, a measure that expanded the ability of eligible homeowners to move to a new home and transfer their property tax bill from the old home to the new one, avoiding a large tax increase. Prop. 19 also raised taxes, eliminating the longstanding constitutional provisions that enabled parents to transfer their home and a limited amount of other property to their children without triggering reassessment to current market value.
According to the fiscal impact statement put before voters, Prop. 19 could increase revenue by “tens of millions of dollars per year for both state and local governments,” and “most of this new state revenue would be spent on fire protection.”
California’s Department of Finance was directed by the measure to calculate annually, by September 1, the amount of money that the state controller would be required to transfer to the newly created California Fire Response Fund.
The first year’s calculation has now been completed. The amount of money that will be transferred to the California Fire Response Fund is: Zero.
Zero dollars have been generated by Proposition 19 for state firefighting efforts. Zero dollars also will be transferred to a second fund set up by Prop. 19, the County Revenue Protection Fund. That fund was intended to reimburse counties that had lower property tax revenues because of homeowners moving to a new county and bringing their lower tax bill with them.
The Department of Finance informed legislative leaders that property tax collections were indeed higher. However, higher property taxes reduce the state’s revenue from income taxes because property tax payments are deductible. So on balance, “there were no additional revenues and no increased savings to the state from the implementation” of Proposition 19.
“Therefore,” the Department of Finance concluded in its certified calculation, “the Controller will not transfer any funds to the California Fire Response Fund or the County Revenue Protection Fund.”
Prop. 19 was sold to the voters with a costly campaign of ads that showcased firefighters and emphasized tax benefits for wildfire victims who lost their homes to disaster.
The California Association of Realtors, backers of Prop. 19, may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but they didn’t fool the accountants. The firefighters get nothing