SACRAMENTO
Senator McGuire introduces legislation to provide a Fire Safe Home Tax Credit for middle-class homeowners
The size and scope of wildfires across California have increased in intensity and destruction over the past decade, impacting millions of residents and causing tens of billions in damage.
The 2018 wildfire season eclipsed 2017 as the most destructive and deadliest year for wildfires in Golden State history. California’s largest, most destructive and deadly wildland fires have all taken place in the last decade – with over 38,000 homes, businesses and structures having been destroyed by California wildfires since 2015.
Because of this reality, the State of California has been and will continue to invest over a billion dollars in vegetation management and fire prevention funding over the next several years to help protect communities, but individual property owners in the wildland-urban interface have been on their own to pay for expensive hardening upgrades that will help make their home more fire safe.
Over 4.5 million homes are in the most threatened regions in the state and there is a desperate need to provide everyday middle-class Californians with the tools they need to keep their home safe and help stabilize insurance markets in some of the most wildfire-prone regions in the state. On Monday, Senator Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) and several members of the legislature introduced SB 944 – the Fire Safe Home Tax Credit.
“This fire-safe tax credit program is part of a larger data-driven plan to strategically invest in the most threatened communities to help neighbors retrofit their homes and usher in a more stabilized insurance market,” McGuire said. “We must act with urgency and provide middle-class Californians with the tools they need to keep their homes and families safe.”
Under SB 944, homeowners making less than $70,000 annually ($140,000 for a couple) would qualify for the tax credit for home hardening projects with the primary purpose of protection from wildfire.
Qualified taxpayers can get a one-time tax credit, for up to $10,000, for completing home hardening projects already embedded in the state’s fire code, which could include: replacing roofs, exterior walls, vents, decks, fences and chimneys. Out-of-pocket expenses for vegetation management will also be eligible for the tax credit and include wildfire mitigation measures like the creation of defensible space and establishing fuel breaks.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that for every $1 spent on fire hardening measures to bring buildings up to current codes, $4 are saved—including countless lives, billions of dollars in property damage, and hundreds of millions of avoided insurance costs.
In California, the return on investment can approach $6 for each dollar of mitigation.
The Fire Safe Home Tax Credit is co-authored by: Senators Stern, Rubio, Dahle, Dodd, Galgiani, Hill, Jackson and Nielsen and Assemblymembers Aguiar-Curry, Friedman, Wood and Gallagher.
—Submitted
CALIFORNIA
Parents’ $137 million debt
California was the first state to stop charging parents for the cost of their children’s time in the juvenile justice system.
However: That 2018 law doesn’t require counties to forgive fees that parents owed before the law took effect.
The result: Tens of thousands of families still owe juvenile justice fees that California has since abolished, CalMatters’ Jackie Botts reports.
- Botts: Most counties voluntarily cleared the parents’ old debt. But 22 counties are pursuing debt that totals $137 million as of Jan. 1, 2018.
San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Tulare and Stanislaus counties have been collecting these old fees, with close to 414,000 accounts outstanding.
They’re not messing around, as Andrew Simmons, a foster parent of six kids in Ramona, can attest:
- He owes $14,000 to San Diego County for one of his kid’s jail time.
- The county placed a lien on his home and seized a tax return of $660.
The report is part of CalMatters’ California Divide collaboration with news organizations statewide.
—CALMatters
WASHINGTON
Thompson reacts to President’s budget statement
Monday, Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05) issued the following statement in reaction to the President’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposal.
“The President just released a budget outlining his priorities for the coming year that makes it clear he does not care about the health care of people across our nation or the many essential safety net programs that lift up working families. His budget also makes it clear the President is not worried about our federal deficit, as the proposal does nothing to eliminate it over the next decade, reneging on his campaign promise to balance the budget in 10 years.
“This is a clear failure to live up to our values as a nation. The budget cuts Medicare and Medicaid despite the President’s repeated promises to protect these programs. It also slashes our investments in protecting our environment, the health of our children, and the education of our next generation. This is an unacceptable roadmap for our spending over the next year and I will do everything I can to fight back against this proposal.”
You can click here to read a summary of the President’s budget proposal for the upcoming Fiscal year.
—Submitted
