Voters Favor Overrides of Gann Limits, Study Finds

Voters in recent years have overwhelmingly approved measures to override constitutional limits on government spending in limited local elections, a new report by a California taxpayers group revealed Monday.

In 46 elections that were studied where the spending limit was a straight up or down question, voters raised the ceilings 44 times, or 95% of the time, said the corporate-funded California Tax Foundation, the research arm of the California Taxpayers Assn.

“Local governments were phenomenally successful in selling the overrides to voters,” said Rebecca K. Taylor, Cal-Tax research director.

The study is one of the most thorough yet on the impact of the 1979 ballot initiative that put limits on government spending into the California Constitution.

Complicated Formulas

Widely known as the Gann Limit after its author, anti-tax crusader Paul Gann, spending ceilings are established through complicated formulas based on annual adjustments of the consumer price index or the level of personal income in California.

In all, 119 cities, counties and special districts have reached the spending limit, the study said.

Taylor said the election results were surprising because they buck the conventional political wisdom that taxpayers generally will vote to control government spending, especially when there is the possibility of a tax refund, as was the case in many elections.

The study attributed the overrides to skillful presentation of proposals and to the fact that many of the votes were in small, single-purpose special districts.

Officials of larger counties, the report said, “expressed envy of smaller, homogeneous special districts which they felt could more easily win voter approval of more narrowly focused appeals.”

But overrides have been successful in some larger cities and counties. The study pointed out that voters in Santa Monica have voted to override the spending limit three times. In Marin County an override measure passed by a vote of 62.2% to 37.8% after being backed by government officials, local business leaders, the League of Women Voters and the PTA.

As in many other override elections, Marin County voters were warned that failure to raise the ceiling would lead to cuts in vital local services.

The study said the full impact of the spending limit probably will not hit state government for another year or two. Authors of the study said the limit snuck up on state officials.

“High inflation and a recession in the early 1980s had lulled many in Sacramento into almost forgetting that spending limits were supposed to be a factor in determining budget allocations,” Taylor said.

While the constitutional amendment provides for tax refunds or cuts when spending exceeds the limit, the study said that state government actually has a number of options it can choose instead.

One of the alternatives laid out by the Cal-Tax study is the obvious one of recalculating the limit. The study said there are widely differing theories about what should be counted as coming under the limit, like contributions to public employee pension funds.

Other options are prepaying state debt on bonds, increasing financial aid to cities, counties or special districts, proposing overrides, or reducing state spending.