Governor signs Nielsen bill protecting farmland

A watered-down version of a state program designed to preserve farmland has been signed into California law.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the new Williamson Act into law Friday with no fanfare, but Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, who authored the new bill, praised the governor and the Legislature.

Nielsen said the new law is a victory for local government and farmers.

"This will provide peace of mind and hope for the future to our hard-working California farm families and their employees," Nielsen said in a prepared statement.

Nielsen, R-Gerber, has led the legislative charge to protect farmland for the last two years with the backing of many agriculture groups, including the California Farm Bureau Federation.

"Compared to where we were three months ago, this is great news for Colusa County," said Brian Fedora, of the Colusa County Farm Bureau. "This program is especially important in rural counties."

Although the new program is a great compromise to complete elimination, which was previously proposed by the state, the new program only preserves the basic structure of the old land preservation act, and lacks the key element - funding - that made the program function successfully for nearly 40 years.

"The funding is still an issue," said Colusa County Supervisor Denise Carter. "The state has yet to work out any subventions to the county, so it's still unclear how the county will proceed."

Carter said it is a discussion the Board of Supervisors will likely have when it reconvenes in August.

"Even if the county opts to get out of the contracts, there is still a long wait," Carter said. "Some of those contracts are for 10 or more years."

The Williamson Act has long preserved agriculture lands by allowing farmers to pay their taxes based on the value of their crop yields, instead of the value of their land holdings for contractual periods of either 10 or 20 years.

In exchange, farmers agreed to keep their property invested in agriculture production or open space.

To combat lost property tax revenues at the county level, in 1972 the state began issuing "subvention" payments to each participating county government, which allowed the policy to continue, especially in lower-income jurisdictions.

In short, the farmers were allowed to pay less in taxes, and the state backfilled the counties with the subvention payments.

The critical funding, however, was essentially eliminated in 2009 by a then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who slashed the program from around $40 million to just $1,000 for the whole state.

Nielsen has said he recognizes the need to fully restore that funding and promised to continue that fight, but has also acknowledged there is nothing specific in the works at this time.

The bill, A.B. 1265, allows counties to voluntarily implement new contracts that are 10 percent shorter in return for a 10 percent reduction in the landowner's property tax relief.

The farmers pay a bit more, but still not the full amount.

Furthermore, the bill allows farmers under contract to opt out of the new shorter contracts and less beneficial contracts with a simple written notice of non-renewable.

Farmers entering into the new contract would still save about 90 percent of their property tax relief, Nielsen said.

The state Legislative Analyst's Office said allowing counties to renegotiate contract terms with landowners may preserve the program while providing the counties an opportunity to recoup at least a portion of the revenues they have not been getting for three years.

However, the analyst's office also suggested it is unlikely the bill will generate enough revenue to fully save the Williamson Act entirely.

And it is still up in the air whether all the counties that once endorsed the state-funded Williamson Act provisions, will sign up now or opt to have their farmers and ranchers pay their full freight.

The risk is agriculture may find development more lucrative, and that carries its own risks for counties.

CONTACT Rob Parsons at 934-6800 or rparsons@tcnpress.com or Susan Meeker at 458-2121 or smeeker@tcnpress.com.