The stage is seemingly set for a very expensive political battle in 2020 over changing Proposition 13, the iconic property tax limit that California voters enacted 40 years ago.
A coalition of civic and stakeholder groups, led by the League of Women Voters and calling itself “Schools and Communities First,” has qualified an initiative ballot measure to remove Proposition 13’s assessment limits from commercial properties such as office buildings, factories, shopping centers and warehouses, thus raising their owners’ taxes by as much as $11 billion a year.
The additional revenue from a “split roll” would be divvied up among K-12 schools, community colleges, cities, counties and other units of local government.