SACRAMENTO — A ballot measure that would overhaul the state’s tax-cutting Proposition 13 by charging companies in the state billions of dollars more in property taxes will go before voters in 2020.

The measure, which is backed by community groups, education advocates and unions, qualified for the November 2020 ballot on Tuesday when the secretary of state determined that the supporters had gathered more than the needed 585,407 valid signatures of registered voters. Proponents call it the first proposed change in commercial property taxes to qualify for the ballot since Prop. 13 passed in 1978.

“Californians now have the opportunity to reform a 40-year injustice,” said Helen Hutchison, president of the League of Women Voters of California, one of the groups supporting the measure. “After five years of planning and strategizing, we have qualified a split-roll initiative for the ballot — an achievement once thought impossible.”

Under Prop. 13, California property — both residential and commercial — is reassessed only when it is sold. Houses and condominiums tend to change hands every few years, but many large businesses stay put for decades. That means some businesses are paying property taxes based on assessments that date from as long ago as the 1970s.

The measure that qualified for the 2020 ballot would create a system to reassess large commercial businesses every three years, with the Legislature able to increase that frequency. Small businesses with 50 or fewer employees would be exempt, as would agricultural land.

Homes would continue to be reassessed only when sold.

Backers say the change would raise an extra $11 billion a year, the bulk of which would go to schools and local governments.

Anti-tax and business groups said they plan to fight the ballot measure, which they said lacks transparency on exactly how the new revenue would be spent.

“We have already established a strong and broad-based coalition to fight this assault on the most important taxpayer protection Californians have,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Jarvis, who died in 1986, and fellow anti-tax advocate Paul Gann were the main backers of Prop. 13.

“A split-roll property tax is an $11 billion tax increase that will increase costs for everyone at a time when the high cost of living is already driving companies and residents out of the state,” Coupal said.

Melody Gutierrez is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Sacramento bureau chief. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez