16 Apr The Legal Reason To Repeal The FP-5 Fire Service Tax
San Bernardino County property owners residing in unincorporated areas, along with residents in the cites of San Bernardino, Yucca Valley, Grand Terrace, Twentynine Palms, and Upland, have noticed a substantial tax increase on their property tax bills within the last three years. It comes in the form of a $157.26 Fire Prevention Zone Tax. This property tax increase, imposed on residents by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in October of 2018, was never voted on by county residents.
How did we get here?
At this point, you may be wondering how the county got away with imposing a tax on residents without a vote. The answer? It was done illegally. Here’s why:
In November of 1996, California voters sweepingly approved Proposition 218. Better known as the Right to Vote On Taxes Act, Prop 218 was a piece of common sense legislation that amended the California Constitution to require local governments to hold the imposition of special taxes to a two-thirds voter approval. In other words, local governments, legally, cannot impose taxes without receiving the approval of at least 66% of their electorate. Thus, Article 13C Section 2D of the California Constitution was established; “No local government may impose, extend, or increase any special tax unless and until that tax is submitted to the electorate and approved by a two-thirds vote.”
This is where the FP-5 tax fails the legislative litmus test. The $157 FP-5 tax was neither voted on nor approved by two-thirds of San Bernardino County residents. Instead, the County was extremely deceptive in their imposition of this blanket tax.
In 2006, 1,022 voters in the small town of Helendale approved a $117 special parcel tax to establish Improvement Zone FP-5. The improvement zone was created as a way for residents of the area to fund their own fire protection services through the establishment of a fire department. There was a stipulation within the legislation that the special FP-5 tax could increase by 3% annually.
LAFCO Reorganizations
Fast forward to 2016, the cities of Upland and San Bernardino, in danger of bankruptcy and facing heavy pressure from the county fire union, completely gave up their fire departments to the county. This was done via the LAFCO annexation process. LAFCO, also known as the Local Agency Formation Commission, is a governmental entity that operates in San Bernardino County. Established under the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Act of 2000, San Bernardino County LAFCO operates with a large swath of powers, including the governance of local agency boundaries such as the FP-5 fire service zone. In other words, LAFCO determines the boundaries of the FP-5 zone.
When the city council members of San Bernardino and Upland voted to annex their respective fire departments, they became well familiarized with LAFCO, working hand-in-glove with the entity to secure a deal for the San Bernardino County Fire Department that ultimately garnered over $15 million dollars for the department from both cities. It also meant that the residents of Upland and San Bernardino were now paying the FP-5 tax. Because of that 3% stipulation, the tax originally approved by Helendale voters at $117, was now as high as $157.26 and was now being imposed on residents in San Bernardino and Upland who never approved it in the first place.
Then, in 2018, the San Bernardino County Fire Department was running a budget deficit of $29 million dollars. To make up for it, the San Bernardino County Fire Union proposed a county-wide expansion of the FP-5 tax, the spoils of which had proven to be quite lucrative for the fire department at this point. LAFCO, again, facilitated the process. Property owners were furious after their attempts to block the illegal tax imposition were stifled after being confronted with insurmountable requirements set forth by LAFCO in the form of their sordid “protest process.” In October of 2018 the San Bernardino County Supervisors voted to expand the FP-5 zone, thus imposing the illegal $157.26 FP-5 property tax on over one million county residents.
In Conclusion
Ultimately, the decision to implement the FP-5 tax should have been left to the voters of San Bernardino County. Instead, politicians took it upon themselves to enact legislation that benefits them and their enterprises, rather than the entirety of the community. Failure to repeal the FP-5 tax sets a dangerous precedent for San Bernardino County residents.
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