Rural San Benito County homeowners could pay up to $150 annually after a state board’s recent approval of a fire fee to help offset budget cuts that are expected to affect Calfire’s suppression efforts.
A state board restocked with Gov. Jerry Brown appointees approved the fee on rural homeowners this fiscal year, continuing a drive by the governor to raise $50 million from those residents to backfill a Calfire budget gap.
Most property owners will receive a $35 discount for living in a fire district; an estimated 90 percent of structures qualify for that savings. But the remaining fee, $115, will still be significantly higher than what rural property owners would have paid under a plan the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection passed in August.
An estimated 800,000 structures in rural areas, including homes and office buildings, will be subject to the fee. The state is responsible for wildfire prevention and protection in those areas, and the governor said this summer that suburban growth on formerly rural lands had driven up costs for the state.
Paul Avila, the battalion chief for CalFire in San Benito County, said this week that he is “not exactly sure” how the new revenue will impact local fire fighting budgets, though he noted that the fee is aimed at fire prevention efforts more than actual fire fighting response costs.
Calfire Deputy Director Janet Upton said the fee would be assessed on homeowners within the 31 million acres for which the agency is responsible for protecting. The $35 discount was added “to acknowledge that 90 percent of those 800,000 homes are overlaid by existing county fire departments or fire protection districts, so the majority of people would pay $115.”
After Brown’s efforts to pass a higher fee were stymied by the Legislature, he appointed four new members – all Democrats – to the nine-person board in late October. One new appointee, Susan Britting, advocated for immediate action on the higher fee and ultimately made the motion that passed on a 6-2 vote.
The governor’s appointments adviser, Nettie Sabelhaus, and his natural resources secretary, John Laird, were on hand for the final vote.
Brown and Democratic lawmakers authorized a maximum $150 fee as part of the June budget agreement. But the fire board in August approved a smaller $90 fee that contained as much as $65 in credits that could have reduced the fee to as low as $25 for some property owners. The least a property owner would pay under the new plan is $115.
After the board’s action in August fell well short of what Brown had expected, the governor pushed for a new bill in the final days of the legislative session that would have imposed a $175 fee. But Democrats who represent rural areas joined Republicans in opposing Brown’s new bill.
The fee won’t immediately go into effect, Upton said, because it was part of an emergency regulation that is only good for 180 days. That means that the board needs to make the regulations permanent within that time, following a 45-day public comment period.
“The regulations still may be tweaked,” Upton said. “We have to look at it procedurally. This process takes time and there’s a lot of data gathering” that will occur before anyone receives a bill, which likely wouldn’t happen before the new year.
The fire fee is assessed based on “dwelling units or habitable structures,” Upton said, meaning homes. The size of a parcel does not matter.
“It includes mobile and manufactured homes and condominiums and duplexes, but it doesn’t include detached garages, barns or sheds,” she said.
McClatchy-Tribune’s newswire contributed to this report.
