Fact Sheet Proposition 13: 40 Years Later By Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, Alyssa Dykman, Lunna Lopes Jun 18, 2018
blog post Who Likes Proposition 13? By Mark Baldassare May 29, 2014 Proposition 13’s supporters are shaping our fiscal choices today—even though many were not old enough to vote when the measure passed 36 years ago.
Occasional Paper, Report Proposition 13: Some Unintended Consequences By Jeffrey I. Chapman Sep 24, 1998 Commissioned by PPIC for the Tenth Annual Envisioning California Conference, Sacramento, California, September 24-26, 1998.
blog post Reforming Proposition 13 By Mark Baldassare Mar 19, 2014 In the current legislative session there has been a movement toward making changes in the Proposition 13 tax limits that voters approved in 1978.
Occasional Paper, Report State-Local Fiscal Conflicts in California: From Proposition 13 to Proposition 1A By Elisa Barbour Dec 7, 2007 Fiscal relations between California’s state and local governments have been contentious for the past three decades. The conflicts in intergovernmental relations can be traced back to Proposition 13, approved by the voters in 1978, as well as to subsequent state ballot initiatives that have fiscally constrained state, city, and county governments. By giving the state government more control over local revenue and also limiting state and local taxing and spending power, the voter measures have engendered a “zero-sum” political atmosphere in which fiscal considerations have dominated intergovernmental policymaking. However, many of the problematic aspects of the post-Proposition 13 local fiscal system have been the product not of ballot initiatives but of government actions or inactions. Within voter-imposed fiscal constraints, California’s state and local governments have had substantial room to shape fiscal and governance outcomes. This paper traces the evolution of the state-local relationship in California since Proposition 13 and concludes that California governments need to move beyond fighting over fiscal resources and to focus instead on the core problems facing the state.
Report Patterns in California Government Revenues Since Proposition 13 By Michael A. Shires Mar 1, 1999 In June 1978, California voters passed Proposition 13, the first in a long series of ballot initiatives that have constrained state and local governments' ability to raise, allocate, and spend public revenues. This report examines the changes that have occurred in state and local public finance between 1978 and 1995, addressing three questions: How has the share of locally controlled revenues changed? How has the spending flexibility of state and local revenues changed? How has the composition of state and local revenues changed? The study answers these questions for each level of government in California: the state, counties, cities, independent special districts, school districts, and public postsecondary education institutions. A companion volume, Has Proposition 13 Delivered: The Changing Tax Burden in California, traces the changes in the overall revenue burden borne by taxpayers over this same period of time.
Report Has Proposition 13 Delivered? The Changing Tax Burden in California By John Ellwood, Michael A. Shires, Mary Sprague Sep 1, 1998 In 1978, Californians passed Proposition 13, severely restricting the ability of local governments to raise revenue through property taxes. Since then, the voters and public officials have engaged in an almost continual tug-of-war over public finances, with state and local governments seeking creative ways to increase their revenues and taxpayers frequently using the initiative process to prevent new fees and taxes. One of the questions that has arisen in the debate over public finances is whether Proposition 13 has succeeded in reducing the tax burden of Californians. This report answers that question.
Report Proposition 13 in Recession and Recovery By Steven M. Sheffrin, Terri Sexton Sep 1, 1998 Proposition 13 has created wide disparities in property taxes between homes purchased more recently and those owned for many years. Although the steep recession in California from 1991 through 1995 reduced some of these disparities, it also led to a crushing workload for California's understaffed and underfunded property tax assessors' offices. As property taxes fell, hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses filed appeals for reassessment. Many counties are still working through a twelve-to-eighteen month backlog of cases. This report examines disparities in property taxes since the passage of Proposition 13 and the effects on property tax administration in California.
