Existing law establishes the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program and required the Public Utilities Commission to administer a surcharge to collect revenues of up to $100,000,000 per year until January 1, 2025, subject to an annual appropriation of moneys by the Legislature, to allow providers of equipment and service pursuant to the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program to recover their costs as they are incurred. Existing law establishes the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program Administrative Committee Fund for the program described above. This bill would extend the requirement on the commission to collect the surcharge described above until December 31, 2034, subject to annual appropriation of moneys by the Legislature, and would require the commission to transfer moneys it collects from the surcharge to the Controller for deposit into the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program Administrative Committee Fund. Existing law requires the commission to annually review the surcharge level and the balances in the fund identified above. Existing law authorized, until January 1, 2025, the commission to make necessary adjustments to the surcharge to ensure that the programs supported by the surcharge are adequately funded and that the fund balances are not excessive, as defined. This bill would repeal that requirement and, instead, would authorize the commission to make recommendations to the Legislature regarding appropriations under the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program. Under existing law, a violation of an order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because a violation of a commission action implementing this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing statutory law, enacted by Proposition 62, as approved by the voters at the November 4, 1986, statewide general election, prohibits a local government or district from imposing any transaction tax or sales tax on the sale of real property within the city, county, or district, except as provided. The California Constitution authorizes cities organized under a charter to make and enforce all ordinances and regulations in respect to municipal affairs, which supersede inconsistent general laws. Existing law, the Documentary Transfer Tax Act, authorizes the imposition of a tax by a county or city, as provided, with respect to specified instruments that transfer specified interests in real property. This bill would require a legislative body of a city, as specified, before it adopts any transfer tax on the sale of real property, to develop and post on its internet website an analysis that examines, at a minimum, the effect of the proposed transfer tax on, among other things, the production of affordable housing, including affordable housing produced by market-rate housing projects. The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.
