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 provides, for an eligible county declared to be in a state of disaster as a result of the Oakland/Berkeley Fire of 1991 or the Painted Cave Fire of June 1990, for state allocations of the estimated amounts of the reductions in property tax revenues on the regular secured roll and on the supplemental roll for the 1992–93 fiscal year, as a result of the reassessment of damaged properties under a reassessment ordinance. Existing law requires 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. 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 modify the above allocation provisions by excluding from the amounts of estimated and actual property tax revenue losses the amounts of estimated and actual losses for school districts, other than basic state aid districts, as defined, county offices of education, and community college districts. This bill would also establish similar allocation provisions, containing the same exclusions, with respect to those eligible counties declared to be in a state of disaster as a result of the earthquakes that occurred in California in April 1992.

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 1992–93 fiscal year property tax revenue reductions, this bill would make an appropriation.

Existing property tax law generally requires, where the filing of a claim is necessary to obtain a property tax exemption, that any person claiming an exemption as to a supplemental assessment file a claim, or an amendment to a claim, on or before the 30th day following the date of the notice of a supplemental assessment, in order to receive the full exemption.

This bill would provide, notwithstanding the foregoing requirement, that an application for the property tax welfare exemption shall be deemed timely filed with the assessor of a county of the 9th class where certain conditions are met with respect to the dates of filing and delinquency. This bill would contain legislative findings as to the necessity of a special statute with respect to these provisions.

This bill would provide that its provisions are severable. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.