Existing law authorizes a county board of supervisors to provide by ordinance for the reassessment of property that is damaged or destroyed, without fault on the part of the assessee, by a major misfortune or calamity, upon the application of the assessee or upon the action of the county assessor with the approval of the board of supervisors. With respect to an eligible county, defined to include a county that, among other things, has adopted a reassessment ordinance as described above, existing law also authorizes owners of eligible property, as defined, who have applied for reassessment under that ordinance, to apply for and receive the deferral of the next installment of property taxes on the regular secured roll. It additionally authorizes an eligible county to adopt an ordinance allowing, upon the filing of a claim by an assessee, the deferral of that assessee’s unpaid and nondelinquent taxes on the supplemental roll. Existing law provides, as specified, for state allocations to eligible counties to reimburse those counties for the deferral of taxes on the regular secured and supplemental rolls, and requires eligible counties to in turn reimburse the state, as provided, for those allocations. Existing law also continuously appropriates, without regard to fiscal years, moneys in the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties for purposes of making the required state allocations.

This bill would additionally provide, as specified, for state allocations to eligible counties, declared by the Governor to be in a state of disaster as a result of floods occurring in California in February 1992, of the estimated amounts of the reductions in property tax revenues on the regular secured and supplemental rolls for the 1991–92 fiscal year as a result of the reassessment of damaged properties under a reassessment ordinance, with the exception of any estimated property tax revenue reductions to school districts (other than basic state aid school districts), county offices of education, and community college districts, as specified. It would require alternatively that the eligible counties receiving those allocations reimburse the state for those amounts or that the state make additional allocations to those eligible counties, as applicable, where the estimated reductions in property tax revenues differ from the actual amounts of those reductions, excluding any property tax revenue lost by school districts (other than basic state aid school districts), county offices of education, and community college districts, as specified.

By requiring moneys continuously appropriated from the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties to be allocated by the Controller for the purpose of reimbursing certain eligible counties for 1991–92 fiscal year property tax revenue reductions, this bill would make an appropriation. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.