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Dear Mayor Taylor and City Councilmembers,
As you know, I wear many hats, but I am writing as an individual resident of Menlo Park.
I’m very glad to see agenda items E2 and E3 on tonight’s agenda. I support endorsing Prop 15 and 16 as a city, as I think the research has been done by our county staff, and our county board of supervisors voted today – unanimously – to endorse both initiatives. I’ll add that several informed public comments were heard on both initiatives, all in support.
In case it’s helpful for your discussion tonight, here are my notes from the discussion of Prop 15, which was presented and discussed in some depth.
Staff - Overview:
* Commercial property owners with < $3M in holdings are exempt (check that I got this right)
* Legislature will set the process for implementation and appeal
* Funds in order of priority/distribution: (check my accuracy here)
* Backfill state general fund for any losses
* Counties, to cover administrative costs
* Local govts
* Schools
* School share goes to the state to be distributed in proportion with exceptions that a lower proportion to basic aid districts and a higher proportion to higher need districts.
Staff - Impacts to County:
* 2428 properties meet the threshold for reassessment in San Mateo County
* Increase value of 46.3M upon full implementation
* Increased workload especially assessor’s office, county counsel, controller
* Most reassessments will be challenged.
* 8-10x workload over three year implementation period
Pine:
* Long overdue to implement split roll
* 2/3 of property tax used to come from commercial properties
* Now it’s reversed.
* Prop 15 website has estimates for each and every jurisdiction in the county of San Mateo County and each estimate is NEW money. $169M new money to SMC; $22.5M to RWC;
* How does it affect our basic aid school districts; pie increases for all even as some of our property tax goes to higher need districts.
* SMC is biggest beneficiary in per capita basis
Horsley:
* Prop 13 made our state tax system is a mess. Although I will support Prop 15, I don’t love it because it will make the tax system even messier.
* Sea level rise, wild fires, we have major funding needs.
* Will support
Groom:
* Nothing else to add.
Canepa:
* Sound policy; makes sense
* 8-12.5B state-wide, upon full implementation
* Obviously I’m in support of this…
* CTA, State Dem Party, support Prop 15; why is the CA NAACP is opposed?
* Makes a ton of sense, I support it.
Slocum:
* Has serious concerns
* Did considerable amount of research
* Some newspapers have supported this and some have not
* Subject of school financing is a mystery
* I intend to support Prop 15 but I would caution that the impact will be huge to the assessor’s office. Expect a massive number of appeals. Asks county manager to pay attention to, and plan for, the probable impact on assessor’s and county counsel’s office.
Thanks for your consideration,
-Karen Grove
