(a) The costs of marketing and promoting the initial referendum shall be provided by private payments. The costs of the initial referendum shall be paid by the office. The office shall coordinate the referendum to ensure that it is unbiased and factually correct. In the event that the initial referendum fails in the first attempt at passage, subsequent attempts at passage of the initial referendum shall be permitted, except that the costs of conducting the subsequent attempts at passage, along with the costs of marketing and promoting those attempts at passage, shall be provided by private payments. Subsequent attempts at passage shall be conducted in the manner specified in this subdivision. In the event that the initial referendum passes, whether on the first attempt at passage or a subsequent attempt at passage, the private payers and the office shall be reimbursed for all of their respective initial referendum costs from assessments first received.

(b) The ongoing referendum costs shall be paid by the commission.

(Added by Stats. 2003, Ch. 229, Sec. 1.5. Effective January 1, 2004.)