County Considering Shutting Off Tax Benefit for Seniors and the Disabled Tuesday

A small item on the agenda of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Tuesday could have big implications for families who want to live closer to one another.

Under urging from County Assessor Larry Stone, and with the endorsement of the Los Altos School Board, supervisors will consider eliminating a two-decades' old tax benefit for seniors and the disabled, popularly called Prop. 90. Stone has said that counties don't get the property tax that they ought to because of Prop. 90, which voters approved to allow those groups to transfer their Prop. 13 tax rate if they move into participating counties.

"You'd do anything for your kids, especially your grandbabies," said Charlie Mikulis, a retired naval officer from El Cerro in San Diego who has been looking to move to the area, where his daughter, son-in-law and their twins live in Mountain View.

"I'd hate to say money is going to keep us from our grandkids, but but it's really tough on all of us who are retired."  

Los Altos realtors Denise Welsh and Nancy Carlson are attending the supervisors meeting Tuesday afternoon to present letters from the Mikulises, who is Carlson's client, and to testify about about an elderly woman in Menlo Park who was only able to sell her aging home and move to a condo in Los Altos that she could manage better because Prop 90 kept her taxes the same as for her home in Menlo Park.

Welsh said she did a slow burn while sitting in a recent Los Altos School District board meeting where the board voted for a resolution in support of eliminating of Prop. 90. The number of transactions that realtors handle in this category are very small she said. But it makes a huge difference in individuals' lives.

"They talk about how important the children in the district are," Welsh said. "but the fact is that the people moving in this area could be family members of these children, who are coming here to participate in the children's lives."

Voters approved Prop. 90 in 1988 so that seniors and the disabled could make a one-time move and transfer their Prop. 13 tax rate if they purchase a home at the same price or lesser in a participating county. Currently there eight counties that participate: Alameda, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, El Dorado, and Ventura.

The number of transactions are very small, said Gene Lentz, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Realtors, and it's not about the number of sales in Santa Clara County that realtors are concerned about, it's the clients.