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School Funding Initiative Enters Circulation

School Funding. Property Tax Revenues.
Initiative Constitutional and Statutory Amendment.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced the proponents of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for their measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponents and to the Secretary of State, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponents and to county elections officials. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

SCHOOL FUNDING. PROPERTY TAX REVENUES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY AMENDMENT. Prohibits state from redirecting or reducing the allocation of local property tax revenues designated for K-12 public schools and community college districts. Requires state to use its general fund instead of these local property tax revenues to compensate cities and counties for their reduced vehicle license fee revenue when the fee is set below 2 percent of vehicle market value. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Net decrease in city and county revenue of about $2.5 billion per year, beginning in 2015-16. Uncertain impact on annual state costs ranging from savings of a few billion dollars to costs of a few billion dollars, beginning in 2015-16. Possible increase in school and community college funding. (13-0047.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1635 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 13-0047.

The proponents for the measure, Katherine G. Welch and Jennifer L. Bestor, must collect signatures of 807,615 registered voters (eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election) in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponents have 150 days to circulate petitions for the measures, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials by June 30, 2014.

The proponents can be reached at (510) 500-5147.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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