SAN ANDREAS, CA – Rico Oller (R-San
Andreas), candidate for Assembly, today restated his opposition to recently
assessed annual fire fee (SRA fee). Rural property owners in California’s
foothills and mountains insist it is a tax and an illegal one at that.
Oller supports a lawsuit by the
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association declaring the assessment on property an
unconstitutional tax under the 2/3rds voting requirement of Proposition 26.
To make up for budget cuts at
California Department of Forestry and Protection, the Democrat Legislature
passed, with a simple majority vote, a bill intending to raise $84 million by
charging 825,000 property owners in one third of the state up to $150 a
year.
Prop 26 was passed in 2010 to prevent
the legislature from bypassing the 2/3rds vote requirement of Prop 13 by
calling a tax a “fee.”
The Board of Equalization reports
that 95% of the properties receiving the SRA fire tax bill are already paying a
local fire protection assessment that the property owners have approved with a
2/3rds vote under Prop 218. Many of
these property owners do not receive fire protection from Cal-Fire; they are
paying a fee for a service they do not receive.
Many residents affected by the fee are retired and live on fixed
incomes.
“The top priority of government ought
to be public safety and education. There
should be no new property taxes levied on those who can least afford them,”
Oller insisted.
“Our people have already paid for
fire protection in their state and local taxes. The state needs to stop spending money on
wasteful projects like high speed rail and needs to trim the bureaucracy and
the regulatory enforcement regime. Those
cuts would allow the state the flexibility to balance the budget while paying
for necessary government services.”
