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126 Part i california Water policy. Bond funds have provided stopgap funding for activities once supported by the general fund.59 California needs more reliable, user-fee based funding to support publicly related water expenses, including the basic science, monitoring and planning functions of government as well as investments to improve aquatic habitat. As discussed in Chapter 7, the state’s energy and transportation sectors provide useful user-fee models. Whether the public can be convinced to shift to more fee-based funding of such public functions is an important question. Voter support for numerous water bonds suggests a willingness to support these activities with taxpayer dol- lars, but it is not clear that voters recognize the costs of state general obligation bonds in terms of new taxes or reduced spending in other areas. (Indeed, state general obligation bonds are often promoted by their sponsors as not requiring new taxes; in contrast, local bonds are generally proposed along with a revenue source to cover the obligation [Hanak 2009b]). In contrast to such issues as the economy, education, and crime, water is generally not the foremost policy issue on the minds of the state’s residents.60 However, public opinion surveys suggest that the public is concerned with water conditions in the state. Over the past decade, water issues (supply and quality) have generally ranked second after air quality as the state’s top environmen- tal issue (Figure 2.17). (Water surpassed air quality in 2009, when many resi- dents faced voluntary or mandatory rationing because of drought conditions and cutbacks in Delta pumping.) In recent surveys, more than two-thirds of respondents said that water supply is at least somewhat of a problem in their region (Baldassare et al. 2009a, 2010). Looking ahead, most said that they are very or somewhat concerned about the potential for more severe floods (55–60 percent) and droughts (78–85 percent) as a result of climate change (Baldassare et al. 2005, 2007, 2009). Although raising new fees to support the water sector is not likely to be popular with California voters, better public information about water system conditions might help foster public discussion for reform of the inadequate funding mechanisms currently available. 59. Since the onset of chronic state budget problems in 2001, bonds have funded at least one-quarter —and sometimes more than half—of DWR’s operational expenses in every year except 2005 (authors’ calculations using information from the governor’s budgets). 60. In 38 surveys conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California between August 1999 and June 2010, water (supply or quality) never accounted for more than 2 percent to 3 percent of responses to the open-ended question: “Thinking about the state as a whole, what do you think is the most important issue facing people in California today?” Jobs and the economy were almost always the highest, occasionally surpassed by immigration (in 2007), crime (in 2003), energy prices (in 2001), and schools (1999) (all surveys are available at www.ppic.org).