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Local-Official Compensation Initiative Enters Circulation

Elimination of Benefits for Part-Time Local
Officials. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced that the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

ELIMINATION OF BENEFITS FOR PART-TIME LOCAL OFFICIALS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Prohibits part-time elected or appointed officials of local governments or special districts from receiving pension, retirement, health insurance and other benefits. Limits compensation of part-time local officials to salary, stipend or per diem payment for attending public meetings. Requires a local entity’s monetary payments to its parttime officials to be posted on the entity’s and State Controller’s websites. Prohibits any elected part-time local official from receiving monetary payment for service on any governmental body other than the one to which he or she was elected. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Unknown reductions in local official compensation costs, potentially in the range of tens of millions of dollars annually. (11-0066.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1536 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 11-0066.

The proponent for this measure, Peter Foy, must collect signatures of 807,615 registered voters – the number equal to eight percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election – in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for this measure, meaning the signatures must be collected by May 25, 2012.

The initiative proponent can be reached at (916) 442-7757.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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