On November 5, 2024, California voters have a historic opportunity to authorize up to $10 billion in bonds to fund safe drinking water, wildfire prevention, and other activities that will make California’s public lands more resilient to the impacts of a changing climate.
Proposition 4 — formally known as the Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, And Clean Air Bond Act of 2024 — is a crucial measure that will provide much-needed resources to California’s state parks. These funds will update infrastructure, improve adaptation to rising seas and extreme weather, acquire new parklands; and create recreation opportunities in local communities.
Why a bond?
A general obligation bond like Prop 4 funds priorities by borrowing, as opposed to pay-as-you-go financing. While borrowing involves paying interest, the state’s Legislative Analyst explains that bonds can make sense to fund large public infrastructure projects like those in Prop 4 for several reasons:
“One advantage of bonds is that they can better align who pays for the project with who benefits from the project. Since capital outlay projects will provide benefits for many years, future taxpayers would pay for the future benefits (through debt service payments) rather than current taxpayers paying for the entire project (through cash financing). A second advantage of bonds is that they can be an important tool for financing high-priority projects, even if there is limited funding available to pay the up-front costs. For example, if the state has a budget deficit, bonds can fund important projects without forcing the state to cut into existing programs.”
California’s tax structure causes the state budget to fluctuate dramatically between surpluses and deficits. In flush years, when there is an abundance of revenue like 2021 and 2022, the state leveraged its excess cash —$97.5 billion in 2022 alone — to fund capital needs such as deferred maintenance in state parks or forest management to prevent wildfires. However, by 2023, the state faced a budget shortfall, prompting the Legislature and Governor to implement $32 billion in cuts to balance the budget for the fiscal year starting on July 1, 2023. Just a year later, another significant deficit required $45 billion in cuts for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024. Unfortunately, more deficits are expected in the coming years.
Some of these cuts have been particularly painful for state parks, including slashing hard-won funding for deferred maintenance and sea level rise adaptation that was awarded just a few years earlier. In response to these volatile budget swings, California State Parks Foundation and many other groups have been advocating for bond investments, arguing that the accelerating impacts of climate change are creating an urgent situation for our state’s legendary biodiversity and public lands.
The Path to Proposition 4
Prop 4’s path to the ballot has taken many years and the collective efforts of legislators and activists like us along the way. The last bond to fund natural resources priorities like clean water, wildfire resilience, and park access was 2018’s Proposition 68 — the California Drought, Water, Parks, Climate, Coastal Protection, and Outdoor Access for All Act. California State Parks Foundation rallied support for Prop 68, and we were thrilled when it passed by a wide margin in June 2018, with almost 58 percent of voters supporting it. Prop 68 provided $4 billion overall to fund water infrastructure, natural resource conservation, and parks. California’s state parks received $218 million of that, with another $725 million going to create and expand local parks in park-poor communities. Most of that money has now been spent or committed to an impressive array of projects across the state park system.
Prop 68 marked a significant victory in conservation, as it was the first natural resources bond in California for 15 years. Recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis, efforts to assemble another bond measure began in the 2019 legislative session when Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia introduced AB 352. Over the next four years, several legislators — including Assemblymember Garcia, Assemblymember Mullin, and Senator Portantino — introduced iterations of similar bills intended to bring a climate bond to the people for a vote. This year, those efforts culminated when 2023’s SB 867 (Allen) and AB 1567 (Garcia) were brought together to inform key elements of the current climate bond. SB 867, the Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024 was signed by Governor Newsom in July 2024, becoming Proposition 4.
What’s in Prop 4?
The effort was worth the wait. Prop 4 contains crucial investments for state parks, including:
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$175 million in deferred maintenance in state parks. There are many deferred maintenance projects that can benefit climate resilience, like managing overgrown forests to reduce wildfire risk, and redesigning and relocating amenities like roads and campgrounds to help them withstand extreme weather and flooding.
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$50 million in sea level rise adaptation projects at state beaches and other coastal properties managed by California State Parks. One-quarter of California’s coastline is a state beach, and the need to build resilience is urgent.
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$200 million to the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program, which grants funds to underserved communities to build parks and other recreational facilities. Securing additional funds for this popular and successful program has been a priority since the program lost funding when all remaining available funding was reallocated for other uses in the 2024–2025 budget.
It is incredibly exciting to see these proposed investments on the table, as they hold the potential to make a significant impact on California’s state parks and other critical natural resources priorities. However, to turn these proposals into reality, we must vote YES on Prop 4 this November. This vote is crucial to secure critical resources that will support our state parks, ensure safe drinking water, enhance wildfire prevention efforts, and address other urgent needs driven by the ongoing climate crisis. By approving Prop 4, we can take a significant step towards protecting and preserving California’s natural treasures for future generations.
To learn how you can help, visit our Prop 4 action page and take the Pledge to vote YES on Prop 4 on November 5!
SOURCES:
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Full Text of Proposition 4 (starts on page 75)
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Legislative Analyst Report on Financing Approaches to Capital Outlay (2023-2024)
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Information on California’s FY 24 and FY 25 budgets