To rectify County Fire budget, supervisors eye parcel tax - FP-5

[Cheapskate]

And my key point is you didn't refute anything in the linked story, something similar was also reported in the VV Daily Press last Sept., http://www.hidesertstar.com/news/article_6cd0f11c-dff3-11e9-8b9e-cbd6aa6416bf.html

A vote on FP-5 is already going to happen. Not sure what your angle is with the petition.
 

[tcaarabians]

Cheapskate:  My interpretation of his response is that there is a constitutional issue here. That would be the State of Ca. Constitution as amended by Prop 13 and likely Prop 218.  Not the U.S. Constitution.

I haven't read the petition or seen any language as to a ballot measure placed by the Supervisors/Fire District. If that one sentence in his post is the full text of the proposition - it repeals the tax. It doesn't preclude the Supervisors from doing the same thing again. I do agree that the way the FP-5 protest vote was handled was poor. I also agree that using a "protest vote" procedure in this instance was highly questionable. I didn't disagree with the need to address the fire budget. I do hope the Supes look at a possible sales tax increase. It could exempt a variety of sales to mitigate a regressive impact on lower income residents.


The article was wrong on one point:  It stated that .."in the past funding for fire services came out of the general fund."  Only a portion of that funding was General Fund monies. A larger portion was from property taxes.

[yodeler]

Well I tried to sign the petition on Friday but since I am registered in another county I could not. As an out of county registered voter it appears that I have no say in this. How many others are in the same situation?

[Cheapskate]

But as an out-of-county voter you are also not paying the fee, ha ha!

[tcaarabians]

If Yodeler owns property here - Yodeler is paying the fee.

[Cheapskate]

Good point! I clearly forgot that important detail.

[Cheapskate]

Yes, The Sentinel article is enlightening. It says the signature requirement is based on the 73,500 folks who live in the unincorporated FP-5 that cast a vote for governor in the last election. If RBG is turning in 34,000, common sense says most of those will be found invalid (45% of the district signed? No way. Most initiative campaigns struggle mightily to get 10%) RBG got rejected in court, now they'll be rejected by the Registrar of Voters.

[tcaarabians]

I just want to know if a lawsuit wins or the petition results in a vote that overturns the fee - how are we going to pay for the services we need? What then?

[Bob C]

how are we going to pay for the services we need? What then?

It either comes out of existing county budgets, or... the County needs to learn the lesson that you don't impose taxes illegally. Let the voters speak.

I'm not even at the point where I feel I need to decide whether or not to support an additional tax. Maybe I would. Who knows. But I'll never support an effort to illegally ram something like this down my throat. The same goes for politicians who try to ram taxes, mislabeled as "fees" down my throat. Our constitution has very strict rules about imposing taxes. I don't appreciate politicians trying to get around those rules.

[tcaarabians]

Bob C. Fair enough. The protest tax process used and the way it was run angered me too.  In the end, I want to see the F.D. budget adequately funded.

[lwt42]

I just want to know if a lawsuit wins or the petition results in a vote that overturns the fee - how are we going to pay for the services we need? What then?

In the same way it has always been done: a portion of our property taxes goes directly to the SBCoFPD, just like a portion of our property taxes goes to the local School District, and a portion to the County for the general fund (and others).

Schools don't get what they need to operate, so the State of California supplements the property tax.

The Fire District also falls short, so the County of San Bernardino supplements their budget.

We got the FP-5 fee because the County Board of Supervisors told the SBCoFPD Board that they make no promises on future funding, so the SBCoFPD went after other sources. 

If the County Board of Supervisors and the SBCoFPD can't come to an agreement we should throw them out of office.

Seems easy enough for the two boards to work it out, since the SBCoFPD Board is the County Board of Supervisors, just wearing different hats.

Short answer: the Board of Supervisors needs to continue their traditional role.  There may need to be an initiative to force the County to do so.

[YoMama]

How about we do what Calimesa did and separate our share of the Fire Protection funds out of the county purse and back into Wrightwood ? Even if we vote down FP-5,  the funds allocated to our specific needs would be ours NOT the county's general funds. And spent as we need them for our unique area. 

[lwt42]

How about we do what Calimesa did and separate our share of the Fire Protection funds out of the county purse and back into Wrightwood ? Even if we vote down FP-5,  the funds allocated to our specific needs would be ours NOT the county's general funds. And spent as we need them for our unique area.

Before we get too excited about this, we need to find out the size of the purse and the cost of running a separate agency.

[Jim Wilkins]

How about we do what Calimesa did and separate our share of the Fire Protection funds out of the county purse and back into Wrightwood ? Even if we vote down FP-5,  the funds allocated to our specific needs would be ours NOT the county's general funds. And spent as we need them for our unique area.

Before you vote to cancel the FP-5, folks need to do due diligence on just how expensive it is to have a staffed Paramedic Fire Engine and staffed non-firefighter Paramedic Ambulance on duty 24/7 for a year.  There is not remotely enough locally generated funds to keep a single sheriff assigned to Wrightwood and hasn't been for years.   We complained and championed for fully staffed station with highly trained professional firefighters and state of the art equipment for years.  We finally got them.  Folks need to be careful what you wish for.

[Cheapskate]

Perhaps you know something I don't. Is there an upcoming vote to cancel the FP-5 expansion?

[Jim Wilkins]

Perhaps you know something I don't. Is there an upcoming vote to cancel the FP-5 expansion?

My understanding was that there was a ballot petition that had enough signatures to force a county wide vote submitted. 

[lwt42]

The real question is: how do we fund essential services?

The 2018-2019 proposed budget says the SBCoFPD gets $23.7 million dollars: $10.8 from property taxes, $7.8 million from the County General Fund, and $4.0 million from fees.  The budget tapped the agency reserves for $873 million.

Reserves are necessary for events like the Blue Cut Fire.

The Fire Protection District does not get a portion of other taxes going to the County, like Sales Tax.

I don't have a problem with the County contributing 20% of their taxes and fees to the Fire Protection District, but apparently, our elected County Supervisors like to keep saying "we won't always kick in."

Passing a new tax (or tax increase) for Fire isn't easy, we don't like to add to our tax burden,

So, that's how we got the FP-5 expansion.  Changing boundaries is easier than enacting a new tax.

I'd like to see a statutory minimum reserve that the SBCoFPD must maintain, and statutory requirement that the County contribute to maintaining that reserve.

[Cheapskate]

My understanding was that there was a ballot petition that had enough signatures to force a county wide vote submitted. 

I hope that's the case, but I won't believe it until the signatures are actually verified.

[tcaarabians]

I agree with lwt42 - The question is funding for essential services. I do not know why California broke off its local fire department services into the Fire District entities.  That action, more or less, gave our fire departments the status of step-children in the budget consideration process.

I was surprised at how large the portion of the budget is that pays for ambulance/paramedic calls. The majority of those calls are either Medicare or Medicaid/Medi-Cal  and reimbursed at those rates - which are far lower than insurance rates and likely lower than the cost of the service. State law prohibits charging more than the cost-of-the-service.  Fair enough. But, it is a portion of the budget that is not bringing in enough in revenue to offset expenditures. It is also a portion of the budget that provides service to X number of people annually that are not paying property taxes in SB County. Lovingood was correct about that. I don't know what the answer is to balance that problem. Would a 1/4 or 1/2 cent sales tax be passed? Would an increase in the bed tax help?

The Fire District is broken up into "service areas."  That makes sense. The budget then lays out the costs of those service areas and shows the property taxes that contribute to that area. By definition, the High Desert is never going to have sufficient property tax revenues to pay for its service costs. It's mostly vacant desert land. Thus, we now have the FP-5 fee. That aspect of allocating revenues needs to be looked at whether the fee stays or goes.

I believe the petition that was turned in is still in the signature-verification process. I do agree that the 'protest vote' process was inappropriate and handled poorly. I do not mind paying that fee to ensure we have sufficient revenue to pay for our fire and paramedic services. Do we honestly think that wild fires are going to go away or that our "boomer" population is going to use fewer paramedic services?

[lwt42]

I agree with lwt42 - The question is funding for essential services. I do not know why California broke off its local fire department services into the Fire District entities.  That action, more or less, gave our fire departments the status of step-children in the budget consideration process.

The idea was that each special district (schools, water, sewer, lighting, transit, fire, etc.) had an elected Board (who got paid) and administrative staff (who got paid) and each one had costs.  Merge two into one, and the costs should go down.

Should.

In the extreme case, dozens of Fire Protection Districts merged into one covering San Bernardino County.

That's not the problem.

The problem is that property taxes only pay about 1/4 of the Fire budget.  Reinstate every small Fire District, and they'd each be scrambling for the missing money.

I'm not advocating against the 1978 Proposition 13, but it cut property taxes in half, and sent special districts scrambling to find the money they need to operate, with the Counties and State kicking in to make up the shortfall.

That has been the status quo post Prop. 13.  My question continues to be why isn't the County Board of Supervisors willing to continue their traditional role.