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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Fire chiefs around Lake County and beyond are concerned about the impacts of a new fire fee the state will start collecting this July.
Last summer the state Legislature approved – and the governor signed – ABX1 29, which allowed the implementation of an annual fee of $150 for each “habitable” structure within the State Responsibility Area, or SRA, which is covered principally by Cal Fire.
In the event such structures are in areas also covered by local responsibility areas, there will be a $35 reduction, for a total bill of $115, according to Cal Fire information officer Daniel Berlant.
Berlant said the fee is expected to bring in about $84.4 million annually.
At some point in the future a fee also could be applied to acreage, Berlant said.
“I’m afraid that we’re going to get a lot of calls,” said Lakeport Fire Protection District Chief Ken Wells, adding that local districts had nothing to do with the fee, nor will they benefit from it.
“This is a state tax that we have absolutely no control over,” said Northshore Fire Protection District Chief Jay Beristianos.
Beristianos said there will be a lot of people in his district who will receive a bill for the fee. “It just results from people expanding out into the woods more.”
Beristianos said Cal Fire also has responsibility for watershed areas.
The State Responsibility Area covers 51 million acres in 56 counties, and includes between 1.1 million and 1.5 million individual parcels, and 800,000 habitable structures, Cal Fire reported.
Berlant said the state has loaned Cal Fire $24 million while it implements the new fee. The first $24 million to be collected will then go to the state.
The SRA map above shows the SRA and local responsibility area boundaries around California.
Fee imposed, budget cut
At the same time as ABX1 29 was passed, the state cut $50 million from the Forestry and Fire Protection’s General Fund budget allocation for the 2011-2012 fiscal years. It’s anticipated another $15 million will be cut.
“The implication of the SRA Fee legislation and budget cut taken together was that the Department would be compelled to restore its operating budget loss for fire prevention through collection of SRA Fees,” according to Cal Fire documents. “Despite the Governor’s express expectation that further revision of the enacted legislation would be necessary to reconcile General Fund cuts with fees for prevention services, no such revisions to the statute have been made.”
Without that statutory clarification, the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection had to come up with its own “reasonable interpretation” of how to apply the statutes.
An analysis of the SRA fee by Chief James Little of the Long Vally Fire Protection District in Laytonville questioned Cal Fire emergency response statistics – which he pointed out were lower for actual fires but high for incidents like medical aids – and also worried that the fee will continue to go up.
Berlant said that the fee wasn’t devised based on statistics. While responses like medical aids are high, “It’s not where we spend the money and it’s not where we spend the time.”
Cal Fire spends the majority of its time and money on wildland and vegetation fires, Berlant said.
Officials concerned about costs
On Tuesday, Wells and Tim Streblow, chief of Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, gave the Board of Supervisors an update on the fee.
Officials at the meeting reported that approximately 36,461 parcels in Lake County fall within the SRA, and 13,825 of those have improvements of more than $10,000 each.
Streblow said the funds will mostly be used to cover the costs for grants to firesafe councils and nonprofits, not restoring cut firefighter positions. He also suggested there is a strong likelihood of legal protest.
A quick calculation by Supervisor Jeff Smith concluded that Lake County residents would pay a total of $2 million because of the new fee.
County Administrative Officer Kelly Cox said the fee was clearly a tax.
“It’s just a way the state has found to raise revenue. It’s a tax. They can call it anything they want,” Cox said.
Cox also was concerned that many people don’t know they’re going to get the bill.
There are other concerns about how the fee will impact fire districts.
Beristianos told Lake County News that the SRA fee will make it tougher for local districts to get support for their own new fees.
“We’re already behind on the Northshore on what we charge for our fire tax,” Beristianos said.
The Board of Equalization told Lake County News on Thursday that it will be responsible for collecting the fees.
The agency will begin sending out bills between July and August, mailing them out to counties in alphabetical order, beginning with Alameda County.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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