Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Fire Prevention Fee bills in the mail

George Runner announced today that the State of California has mailed more than 40,000 “Fire Prevention Fee” bills to date.

“About 5% of the estimated 825,000 fire tax bills are in the mail so far.” said Runner. “The state is currently sending bills to taxpayers in Calaveras County. Up next are Colusa, Contra Costa, Del Norte and El Dorado counties.”


The tax, which Runner opposes as “unfair and unconstitutional,” was approved as a fee on a dubious simple majority vote of the Legislature last year and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.

“Not one penny of this new tax will be used to put out fires,” cautioned Runner. “The funds collected—optimistically projected to be $84 million—are restricted to funding existing fire prevention efforts and cannot be used for firefighters or actual fire suppression.”

The new law requires residential rural property owners in the State Responsibility Area (SRA) to pay $150 for each habitable structure located on their land. Property owners who pay for local fire protection receive a $35 reduction.

To help inform California taxpayers, Runner has established a website, calfirefee.com, providing information about the new fire tax. Californians can visit this site to find out if they will receive a fire tax bill. They can also learn details regarding the process, timeline and grounds for filing an appeal.

The state plans to mail more than 825,000 bills in alphabetical order by county between August and early December. The state has released the following partial mailing schedule, as well as a complete county-by-county bill count.

County
Mailing Date
Number of Bills
ALAMEDA
August 13th through 14th
4,231
ALPINE
August 14th
1,697
AMADOR
August 14th through 17th
11,569         
BUTTE
August 17th through 24th
21,051
CALAVERAS
August 24th through 29th
23,224
COLUSA
August 29th
411
CONTRA COSTA
August 29th
4,336
DEL NORTE
August 29th through 30th
5,393
EL DORADO
August 30th through September 7th
51,897
FRESNO
September 7th through 10th
9,845
GLENN
September 10th
327
HUMBOLDT
September 10th through 12th
15,824
IMPERIAL
September 12th
17
INYO
September 12th
3,132