SACRAMENTO — The Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC) announced on July 23 their continued opposition to the State Responsibility Area (SRA) fees as the second round of bills are slated to hit rural homeowners.
The SRA fees, also known as fire prevention fees, are imposed by the state, and aim to backfill a void created in the CAL FIRE budget in 2011, according to Justin Caporusso of the RCRC.
The SRA is the area of California where the state is financially responsible for the prevention and suppression of wildfires, according to the California fire prevention fee website. The SRA does not include lands within city boundaries or in federal ownership.
“The fee is levied at the rate of $150 per habitable structure, which is defined as a building that can be occupied for residential use,” the California website stated. “Owners of habitable structures who are also within the boundaries of a local fire protection agency will receive a reduction of $35 per habitable structure.”
One of the concerns of the RCRC is, according to CAL FIRE”s data, that the most expensive activities are for fire suppression in highly-urbanized areas, not rural areas, Caporusso stated. Another is that most landowners in the SRA have already agreed to a fire protection and prevention tax at the county level.
“RCRC remains opposed to this fee. It is bad public policy, and unfair to rural homeowners,” said Kevin Cann, RCRC board chair and Mariposa County supervisor. “We will continue our efforts to repeal this fee, and relieve rural homeowners of this duplicative tax.”
The first round of bills was mailed to rural homeowners last year, following an implementation period, where the state spent an estimated $15 million in up-front costs to launch the program, Caporusso stated.
The fee will fund fire prevention services within the SRA including brush clearance, according to the state website. It is applied to all habitable structures within the SRA.
A schedule of when bills will be sent is online at www.boe.ca.gov/sptaxprog/fire_prev_fee.htm.
For information about RCRC, visit rcrcnet.org.
