February 2020

By Jennifer Ito, Justin Scoggins, and Manuel Pastor

This report is an update of Getting Real About Reform: Estimating Revenue Gains for Changes to California’s System of Assessing Commercial Real Estate, a report released in May 2015 that sought to provide empirical analysis to help generate a new level of civic—and civil—conversation about structural changes to the state’s property tax system and revenue implications (Ito, Scoggins, and Pastor 2015).

This is our third round of exploring one question: How much additional revenue would be generated through the 1-percent general tax levy if commercial and industrial property were assessed at market value? In Getting Real About Reform II, we estimate that an additional 11.4 billion dollars, or between 10.3 and 12.6 billion dollars, in property tax revenues would be available in 2021-22 if all commercial and industrial property were assessed at market value.

Read our other publications by research area

    Immigrant Integration & Racial Justice

    Our work on immigrant integration and racial justice brings together three emphases: scholarship that draws on academic theory and rigorous research, data that provides information structured to highlight the process of immigrant integration over time, and engagement that seeks to create new dialogues with government, community organizers, business and civic leaders, immigrants and the voting public to advance immigrant integration and racial equity.

    Economic Inclusion & Climate Equity

    In the area of economic inclusion, we at ERI advance academic theory and practical applications linking economic growth, environmental quality, and civic health with bridging of racial and other gaps; produce accessible and actionable data and analysis through the data tools; and establish research partnerships to deepen and advance the dialogue, planning, and actions around racial equity, environmental justice, and the built environment.

    Social Movements & Governing Power

    ERI’s work in the area of governing power includes: conducting cross-disciplinary studies of today’s social movements, supporting learning and strategizing efforts to advance dialogues among organizers, funders, intermediaries, evaluators, and academics, and developing research-based social change frameworks and tools to inform—and be informed by—real-world, real-time efforts towards a vision of deep change.

    Publications Directory

    In 2020, the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) merged to form the USC Equity Research Institute (ERI).

    The full list of publications published under our previous and current names can be found in our publications directory.

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