Proposition 13 was sold to the public 31 years ago as a way of protecting homeowners during a time of rising housing prices – and the corresponding rise in property taxes. This was and remains an imperative policy for California. However, the measure also exempted all commercial property from regular tax reassessment.

Paradoxical to the law's initial intent, the commercial property loopholes in Proposition 13 have actually shifted the tax burden away from corporations and onto the backs of residential property owners.

For example, look at San Francisco, where I currently serve as assessor- recorder. Thirty years ago, commercial property owners contributed 59 percent of property tax revenues and residential property owners contributed 41 percent. Today, we see a virtual flip: commercial property owners contributed just 43 percent of property taxes in 2008, while residential property owners contributed 57 percent.

Nobody in California benefits – not small businesses, major corporations or workers – when we fail to develop an educated work force, halt progress on important infrastructure projects, cut vital services and go more than $24 billion in debt. As a reader wrote in response to an opinion piece I published recently: "My business benefits when I am able to hire decently educated employees who can spell, use good grammar, do math and solve new problems. I need maintained roads and police and fire services as well, or my customers will go elsewhere."

Just as damaging for the business community is the uncertainty of a tax system in which taxes and fees are raised based on what is politically possible, rather than a logical tax system based on what is economically productive. When you replace a steady source of commercial property tax with fees, and very high payroll taxes in some counties, you make business less competitive. Proposition 13 has institutionalized a system that puts new businesses at a competitive disadvantage when they end up paying much more in taxes than mature businesses.

The fact is that Proposition 13 didn't necessarily lower business taxes, it just made them more unpredictable. California now has some of the highest sales taxes and other regressive taxes because our property taxes have dropped into the lowest one-third of all states. Proposition 13 didn't normalize our revenue stream or help our state invest in the future.

Over the last few months, I have been talking to and organizing a campaign with thousands of Californians including small-business owners, teachers, parents, students and employees of major corporations who are tired of seeing their schools and roads fall apart and who can no longer tolerate year after year of budget crisis in Sacramento.

Before becoming assessor-recorder of San Francisco, I spent a good part of my career working for one of the nation's largest business consulting firms, helping both small and large businesses succeed in a changing marketplace.

The pattern for success was very clear then, and it endures today in both business and government: The organizations that invest in the future set a path to success.

We now live in a state that is no longer making the adequate investments for the future success of our state.

We know the problems – too many of our K-12 schools are failing, we're not sending enough young people to college, we're letting our water, roads and rail infrastructure deteriorate, and we're failing to adequately nurture the technology industries of the future. Our lack of fundamental capital investment is the cause of California's lagging economic performance.

Now let's be honest about the solutions. Investments in physical and human capital require a steady, logical and consistent funding source. Such a steady funding source has disappeared from the California budget because of the illogical patchwork of California tax law. It is a broken system that will keep us on a fiscal roller coaster until we make the fundamental reforms necessary.

One of the most important tax reforms we can make is to amend Proposition 13, the foundational tax law in California that, by restricting one of our most important funding streams, has contributed to so many of the problems facing our state.

According to a recent statewide survey, 63 percent of Californians support "closing the loophole that allows corporations to avoid reassessment of the value of new property they purchase." Californians are fed up with the status quo and want to return our state as a beacon for education, innovation and progress. Reforming Proposition 13 to close corporate loopholes is not a panacea, but it is a vital step in the right direction.

Phil Ting is the assessor-recorder of San Francisco