Kern County’s Taxpayers Demand $91-Million Refund

A group of taxpayers calling itself the Kern County Refund Committee is headed for a showdown with the county’s Board of Supervisors in a dispute over more than $91 million.

The money represents half the $182 million the county has put aside from property taxes since 1979, when it faced a series of lawsuits by oil and utility companies contending that they were overtaxed by the county.

Earlier this year, the suits were settled in the county’s favor, releasing the $182 million that the county held in reserve to pay off if the plaintiffs won their cases.

When the county started putting aside the money to cover the costs should the courts back the oil companies, the supervisors said the funds would be returned to the taxpayers if they were not needed for the purpose for which they were put into the reserve fund.

Changed Tune

However, since settlement of the suits, the supervisors changed their tune. Instead of returning the entire $182 million to the taxpayers, the board wants to give back about $18 million.

The county already has claimed $72 million of the fund for other uses, but under state law voters must give specific approval to use the remaining $91 million for any purpose but to return it to the taxpayers.

Thus Measure A was placed on the Nov. 5 ballot. Measure A, if approved by county voters, would allow the county to use the $91 million for road building and repair instead of returning it to the taxpayers.

Gene Tackett was a county supervisor when the board vowed to return the $182 million to the taxpayers if the county won the lawsuits. Now he is one of the leaders of the refund committee. He feels the current board betrayed the taxpayers.

Borrowed From Taxpayers

“The board actually borrowed the $182 million from the taxpayers so they could cover any losses the courts decreed,” Tackett said. “If it hadn’t been for the lawsuits, the money would have been declared excess of budgetary needs and returned to the taxpayers each year. It was a loan, and now the present supervisors want to break the promise to pay back that loan.”

Tackett said he is hoping that the county’s voters will send a message to the board by defeating Measure A.

“A ‘no’ vote on the measure will tell the supervisors that we expect our politicians to keep their promises,” Tackett said. “Voters have for years seen politicians break promises but usually not so blatantly.”

Tackett said the committee’s job is to convince county voters that the money is theirs for the taking.

“To me, it’s a moral and ethical issue,” Tackett said. “The voters have to realize that it is their money sitting there in the county treasury and the only way they’re going to get it back is to demand that it be returned.”

Need for Repairs Cited

When they voted earlier this year to seek voter approval to spend the $91 million on road maintenance, the supervisors said the infusion of funds would allow the county to make much-needed and often-delayed repairs to many county roads that had become almost impassable and had not been fixed because of lack of funds.

Tackett refutes that contention, saying the idea that the $91 million is needed for road repair is ridiculous.

He said the county has never succeeded in spending all the money budgeted for road repair during any fiscal year.

“Try as they might, they’ve just never been able to spend so much money in 12 short months, and to add $91 million to those funds is unreasonable,” Tackett said.