City favors local tax control

Jenny Marder

Huntington Beach joined hundreds of other California cities last week

in backing a state initiative aimed at keeping local tax dollars in

municipal coffers.

Proposed by the League of California Cities, the November 2004

ballot initiative would put voters in charge of whether local tax

dollars could be used to fund state services.

The Huntington Beach City Council voted unanimously at its Nov. 3

meeting to support the measure.

Since 1991, the state government has drained more than $30 billion

in local property taxes from California cities and used the money to

fund a variety of programs and services, said Chris McKenzie,

executive director of the League of California Cities, of which

Huntington Beach is a member.

“Taxpayers are paying a terrible price,” McKenzie said.

City Administrator Ray Silver said that the city of Huntington

Beach alone has lost more than $80 million over the last decade.

“It’s very hard to do any long-term planning when we’re zigzagging

based on state decisions,” Silver said.

The city’s concerns began in 1992 when the state chose to transfer

25% of its property tax revenue from cities to schools and then

reduced state aid to schools by the same amount, Silver said. This

year, the city lost $2.2 million when it had to absorb a three-month

lag in reinstating the vehicle license fee.

“The state makes decisions at a state level to change the city’s

revenue,” Silver said. “They have taken money from us when they’ve

had a problem, but they don’t share it with us during good times.”

If it passes, the initiative would do two things: It would require

voter approval before the state government could use local taxes to

fund state services, and it would require the state to reimburse

local governments for state-mandated programs.

“They’re supposed to reimburse us, McKenzie said. “It’s the law

now, but the way the law works, the court can’t order them to pay is

in a timely way.”

So far, the initiative has garnered little opposition. Poll

numbers have indicated broad support for keeping city tax dollars

local, and more than 300 cities in a recent League of California

Cities general assembly meeting voted to support the idea.

“Every representative at the meeting voted in favor,” McKenzie

said. “We are strongly united in support of this.”

Silver is confident that the initiative will pass.

“I would think that probably about 98% of cities will support it,”

Silver said. “Some will have concerns, but I think, generally, it

will be overwhelmingly supported. Counties and special districts are

supporting it too... . All of us are getting killed.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at [email protected].