Opinion

Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009

Dan Walters: Let rural Californians share the cost of firefighting

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This hasn't been the worst fire season in California history – at least not yet – but it's been bad enough and over time, brush and forest fires are increasing in frequency and damages due to drought and population growth in the state's fire-prone areas.

There's little doubt, especially if global warming has its widely predicted effects, that California's wildfire problem will worsen, and as it does, firefighting costs will also expand, putting an ever-greater strain on a state budget that's already awash in red ink. So it's high time to end the free ride that rural residents and landowners receive.

The state has primary fire protection responsibility for huge swaths of the state, almost all of which is privately owned, from unpopulated grazing lands to semirural ranchettes. But the fast-growing cost of protecting them falls on all state taxpayers, the vast majority of whom are already paying taxes to support local fire departments.

That is, plainly and simply, unfair. In an era of zero-sum budgeting, it means that money is being diverted from other areas of the state budget, such as health care and higher education, to pay for what are essentially local fire services.

For the last few years, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been proposing some version of a property-related fee that would offset at least some of those costs, ranging from a sliding surcharge on property insurance to per-parcel fees. This is the way the Legislature's independent budget office described the situation in one report:

"Because the state provides a service … that directly benefits a particular group … it is appropriate that those beneficiaries pay for a portion of the state's cost for fire protection. Because the department provides fire protection for natural resources of statewide significance – such as watersheds that provide drinking water for much of the state – it is also appropriate that the state as a whole pay for a portion of the cost of fire protection.

"Therefore we believe that it is equitable that the state's cost of providing fire protection … be split between the direct beneficiaries and the state's taxpayers as a whole. Specifically, we recommend the Legislature enact a fee assessed on property owners in (state responsibility areas) that would pay for 50 percent of the state's general fund baseline cost for fire protection."

That would be fair to both Californians who receive primary fire protection from the state and the many more who receive it from local fire departments. It would also ease what is becoming a substantial drain on the deficit-ridden state budget.

Nevertheless, Republican lawmakers, who posture as apostles of fiscal responsibility but represent inland California's most fire-threatened areas, have repeatedly blocked imposing such fees on those being protected.

Republicans mistakenly or hypocritically equate a fee for service with a broad tax, thus perpetuating what amounts to welfare for those who choose to live in danger.