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Supervisors Ranalli and Veerkamp recommending Board authorize the Chair to sign a letter of support addressed to California State Assemblyman Frank Bigelow in support of the Assemblyman's AB 211, introduced on January 23, 2017, which proposes to require that the California State Legislature continue to receive an annual written report on the status of the uses of the State Responsibility Area (SRA) Fire Prevention Fee moneys and to include an itemized accounting of all expenditures of the fire prevention fee.
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Existing law requires the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a fire prevention fee in an amount not to exceed $150 to be charged to each habitable structure on a parcel that is within a State Responsibility Area (SRA). Existing law requires the fee moneys to be expended, upon appropriation, in specified ways, including to reimburse the State Board of Equalization's expenses incurred in the collection of the fee and to the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection and to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for administrative purposes, with excess moneys to be expended only for specified fire prevention activities. Existing law, until January 31, 2017, requires that an annual written report is to be submitted to the Legislature on the status of the uses of the fee moneys.
AB 211, as introduced on January 23, 2017, would require that this annual report is to include an itemized accounting of all expenditures of money collected from the SRA Fire Prevention Fee and would require the reporting to continue to occur annually for an indefinite period of time.
AB 211 seeks to ensure that the SRA Fire Prevention Fees collected are expended according to State law. Specifically to ensure that the State is reimbursed only for the expenses associated with the collection and administration of the Fee and that all moneys in excess of the collection and administrative costs are expended for fire prevention activities that be...
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