City of San Jose v. State of California

In 1979 the voters of the State of California (State) adopted an initiative which added article XIII B to the state Constitution. This followed in the wake of Proposition 13, which had added article XIII A the previous year. Section 6 of article XIII B imposed limits on the State’s authority to mandate new programs or increased services on local governmental entities, whose taxing powers had been severely restricted by Proposition 13. Under section 6, whenever the state mandated such a program, the State would be required to reimburse the local entity for the costs of the program.

The present proceeding arose after the Legislature enacted Government Code section 29550 in 1990 (hereafter, section 29550). Section 29550 authorized counties to charge cities, and other local entities such as school districts, for the costs of booking into county jails persons who had been arrested by employees of the cities and other entities. The City of San Jose (City) claims that at the time of trial it had incurred expenses of over $10 million as a result of costs imposed pursuant to section 29550.

City contends section 29550 is a state mandated program under article XIII B, section 6,…