INVESTING BILLIONS DIRECTLY IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
THE PROBLEM:
Local communities and the workers that serve and protect them have been stretched thin – by the COVID pandemic and its effects, and by massive wildfires – compounding ongoing challenges of homelessness, affordable housing, and maintaining basic services. While the challenges have grown, resources have not due to corporate tax loopholes.
THE SOLUTION: PROP 15 PROVIDES
BILLIONS FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES
Prop 15 allocates its funding directly to local communities the same way that property tax revenues are currently allocated to cities, counties and special districts. These are critical investments that would go to essential local services like firefighters, who have seen cuts despite worsening wildfires. In their endorsement of Prop 15, the California State Firefighters’ Association said that it will provide “at least $390 million in new revenue will go directly to fire districts along with the billions that will go to cities and counties that provide fire protection.”
Prop 15’s allocation of its new loophole-closing revenues is consistent with the provisions of Proposition 1A approved by 84% of voters in 2004 and Proposition 22 approved by 61% of voters in 2010 to protect local property taxes from raids by Sacramento politicians.
Prop 15 recognizes that California is a diverse state with many local communities with different needs and priorities. Prop 15 places decisions on how local communities spend the new revenues – whether on front line healthcare workers, or reducing homelessness, or increasing fire protection or another priority – in the hands of local elected leaders and requires them to be fully transparent about each dollar they receive and how it is spent.
Prop 15 requires that counties be reimbursed out of its loophole-closing new revenues for the costs incurred by county assessors and other county offices implementing the measure.