Court Opinion

ID: 9851750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:19:00.40263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:14.490538
License: Public Domain

KAUS, J.,* Dissenting.
In light of the goals of Proposition 13, I do not understand how the charter provision at issue in this case can be found to create an “indebtedness” within the meaning of the subdivision (b) exemption from the 1 percent tax limitation. Proposition 13’s primary objective was to limit the amount of property tax local governmental entities could levy for their general operating expenses. As we observed in Carman v. Alvord (1982) 31 Cal.3d 318, 334 [182 Cal.Rptr. 506, 644 P.2d 192], subdivision (b) “provides no authority for governments to tax beyond the set limit for their day-to-day expenses.” Yet, if the library tax mandated by the charter provision here qualifies as an “indebtedness” for purposes of the exemption, there is no logical reason why similar levies for police, fire, parks, and all other governmental services would not also be exempt from the initiative’s 1 percent ceiling. Under the reasoning of the majority opinion, so long as a city charter—or perhaps even a local ordinance—expressly mandates future property tax levies in any amount, the city would be permitted by operation of Proposition 13 to levy a 1 percent property tax over and above the mandated levies. Clearly, that is not what the voters had in mind in enacting Proposition 13.
The fundamental flaw in the majority’s analysis is its failure to come to terms with the purpose of the “indebtedness” exemption. Recognizing that *49in some circumstances local entities were “locked in” to debt that required specified tax levies, the initiative provided for an exemption from the 1 percent limitation to the extent of such unavoidable and irrevocable debts.
However flexible the term “indebtedness” has become,1 the obligation created by this charter provision simply lacks the essential indicia of an indebtedness. Unlike the various forms of indebtedness involved in previous cases on which the majority relies,2 the alleged “debt” here is one which the city simply owes to itself and which can be abrogated without violating “vested” constitutional rights or, indeed, any rights of any kind. As the Court of Appeal majority noted, the city’s obligation to the library board “is simply a ministerial duty to provide minimum funding for library services. It is an internal obligation owed to a department of the city and not an indebtedness owed to third persons. ” (Italics added.)
Moreover, the city itself retains the authority to “revoke” the obligation unilaterally, simply by altering the charter provision. Section 16-2 could be *50repealed or amended at any time without any approval from the library board. It is a curious debt which the debtor can cancel at will. In Carman we noted that subdivision (b)’s focus on voter approval “implies a concern that irrevocable, long-term obligations” (31 Cal.3d at p. 328, italics added) not be frustrated by revolutionary tax limitation measures—the obligation created by section 16-2 is clearly not “irrevocable” in any sense.
All this aside, I note that the effect of the majority opinion promises to be quite limited. During the pendency of this case, the Governor signed into law a measure which prohibits local governments from levying taxes such as this in the future. (Stats. 1985, ch. 112, § 3, subds. (a)(5), (b).)3
Grodin, J., and Lucas, J., concurred.

 Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.

In Carman we observed that the term “indebtedness” has “no rigid or fixed meaning, but rather must be construed in every case in accord with its context.” (31 Cal.3d at p. 326, quoting County of Shasta v. County of Trinity (1980) 106 Cal.App.3d 30, 39 [165 Cal.Rptr. 18].) However, we were not thereby endorsing a purely nominalist approach to the term. Rather, we were responding to plaintiff’s argument that subdivision (b) “seeks to exempt only traditional, fixed, long-term debt for borrowed funds.” (id. at p. 325.) And in County of Shasta, supra, the court was responding to the contention that the term “indebtedness” in subdivision (b) meant “bonded indebtedness”—a narrow "reading which the Court of Appeal in that case properly rejected.

Most of the cases cited involved a levy of an ad valorem tax in excess of the 1 percent limitation in order to meet a city’s obligation to a retirement system. (Carman, supra; City of Fresno v. Superior Court (1984) 156 Cal.App.3d 1137 [202 Cal.Rptr. 313]; Valentine v. City of Oakland (1983) 148 Cal.App.3d 139 [196 Cal.Rptr. 59]; City of Watsonville v. Merrill (1982) 137 Cal.App.3d 185 [186 Cal.Rptr. 857].) In Carman we emphasized “the employer’s duty to employees to pay pensions promised and earned”: “By entering public service an employee obtains a vested contractual right to earn a pension on terms substantially equivalent to those then offered by the employer. . . . Earned benefits are deferred compensation [citation omitted] and, when payable, become a fixed indebtedness of the employer. [¶] . . . Contributions to [the State Employees’ Retirement System] are in the nature of insurance premiums . . .; during the contract term they represent the employer’s ongoing share of the actuarial equivalent of amounts necessary to fund current and future benefits due covered employees, statewide. . . . From.premiums paid by all, PERS discharges each employer’s indebtedness as it arises. .. .[¶].. . Contributions to PERS are an efficient means of discharging City’s pension debts; the debts, as approved by the voters, continue to accrue regardless of participation in the state system.” (31 Cal.3d at pp. 325-326, italics added.) The retirement system exists for the benefit of employees; the city’s obligation to the pension fund constitutes an indebtedness to an entity other than itself. This is true, also, of the other situations in which courts have found an “indebtedness” within the meaning of subdivision (b). (County of Shasta, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d 30 [ad valorem tax levied to meet county’s obligation to a joint community college district]; Goodman v. County of Riverside (1983) 140 Cal.App.3d 900 [190 Cal.Rptr. 7] [ad valorem taxes levied by local water agency to meet its contractual obligations to the California Department of Water Resources]; Kern County Water Agency v. Board of Supervisors (1979) 96 Cal.App.3d 874 [158 Cal.Rptr. 430] [obligation to California Department of Water Resources].)

The new measure allows the continued imposition of such taxes, if they were first imposed prior to the 1982-1983 fiscal year—the particular levy before us is therefore apparently unaffected: “Sec. 3. Section 97.65 is added to the Revenue and Taxation Code, to read: [¶] 97.65. (a) For the 1985-86 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, no jurisdiction shall impose a property tax rate pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 93 [codifying the voter-approved debt provision of Proposition 13], unless it is imposed for one or more of the following purposes: [¶] . . . (5) To make payments in support of paramedic, library, or zoo programs approved by the voters before July 1, 1978, provided that the jurisdiction imposed the property tax rate in the 1982-83 fiscal year. [¶] . . . (b) In the 1985-86 fiscal year and any fiscal year thereafter, a jurisdiction shall not impose a property tax rate, pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 93, in excess of the rate it imposed in the 1982-83 or 1983-84 fiscal year. Notwithstanding the limit imposed by this subdivision, a higher property tax rate may be imposed whenever necessary to make payments for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of subdivision (a). However, no property tax rate increase in excess of the rate imposed in the 1984-85 fiscal year shall be imposed if the purpose of the rate increase is to fund a reduction in the rates charged for water at the time of the property tax rate increase.”