Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee held its “Suspense File” hearing. The Suspense File includes all fiscal bills with an annual cost of more than $50,000. Suspense File bills are considered at hearings in each house and no testimony is presented – author or witness. During this hearing, several property related bills that CSDA opposed failed to pass out of the Committee.
SB 939 (Wiener) related to COVID-19 commercial tenant evictions. This measure was opposed unless amended to exempt local agencies and was held under submission last week in the California Senate Appropriations Committee. Had the measure been successful, it would have likely had many long term financial and legal consequences for many of our districts. In addition to prohibiting evictions of private or commercial tenants during the state of emergency related to COVID-19, SB 939 would have:
- Mandated landlords inform tenants of the protections of this measure within 30 days of passage.
- Authorized a commercial tenant that is a small business or an eating or drinking establishment, place of entertainment, or performance venue that meets certain financial criteria, to engage in negotiations with its landlord to modify rent or other economic requirements, which could result in the tenant terminating the lease under certain circumstances.
These provisions would carry penalties if they were unable to be met. This measure had an urgency clause and required a 2/3rds vote by the legislature to pass.
SB 1431 (Glazer) related to property tax reassessments during an emergency. This measure would require a county assessor to re-asses a property based on its current COVID-19 related income earning viability. SB 1431 would have been retroactive to April 5 and continue 12 months past the enactment of this measure or a county's emergency orders, whichever comes last. This measure would have set a dangerous precedent that property tax could be based on short term economic conditions and income generating attributes of a given property rather than the current regime of real estate market value at the time of acquisition. CSDA opposed this measure until it died, being held under submission in Senate Appropriations Committee.
For a full list of bills that CSDA has a position on and their outcomes at last week’s hearing please see last week’s article posted in the Advocacy News Community on CSDA’s website. To stay up to date on the most current legislative issues impacting special districts, join the Advocacy News Community. Once a member of that community, you can control the frequency that you receive advocacy related alerts to either as-it-happens, daily, weekly, or none at all.
#AdvocacyNews
#FeatureNews
#COVID-19
#PropertyTaxes
#Revenue
#PublicWorksandFacilities