Extra Revenue for Pay Raises, More Police : Huntington Park Imposes 7% Utility Tax

Beginning this summer, residents and business owners will pay an additional 7% charge on their telephone, electricity, natural gas and water bills.

The City Council voted unanimously last week to impose the utility tax to raise about $2.74 million a year to fund additional police protection and other city services, Huntington Park officials said. The tax takes effect July 1.

Without the new charge, officials said, Huntington Park would be forced to forgo employee raises during the 1989-90 fiscal year, which begins July 1. It would also have had to spend all but $10,000 of a $475,000 general fund reserve and reduce spending in other areas, such as tree trimming, officials said. The general fund pays for most city services, such as law enforcement and fire protection.

“This is probably the single most difficult decision I’ve had to make on the council,” Councilman Herbert A. Hennes Jr. said. “This one here goes to the heart of every citizen in town. I don’t know any alternatives.”

About 75 people attended a special hearing on the tax before the council voted Monday night. About half of the speakers favored the new tax to put more police officers on the street.

Resident George Fair told of the time he was tied up and robbed at his home in 1986. “It took 20 minutes for an officer to get to my house,” Fair said. “I hope it doesn’t happen to someone else.”

The Southeast Chapter of the United Neighborhoods Organization and the Huntington Park Senior Citizens also supported the tax.

But Oscar Lopez said the tax would be a hardship once he, his wife and three children move into a new Huntington Park home in the next several weeks. “I think maybe you need to cut programs that are less important,” Lopez said.

But the council members decided the financial sacrifice was warranted in light of the proposed budget for 1989-90 that was presented recently by City Administrative Officer Donald L. Jeffers. The spending plan, which did not include revenue from the utility tax, was balanced but anticipated more than $200,000 in cuts for tree trimming and other city maintenance. It also reduced the budget for such items as Christmas decorations for Pacific Boulevard and a subsidy for the Huntington Park Symphony Assn.

Raises for city employees were not included. Huntington Park employees received a 4.2% raise for this fiscal year, which costs the city about $300,000 annually, Jeffers said.

Jeffers said the city is feeling the full effects of Proposition 13 now that state and federal subsidies have been reduced or eliminated.

Without the new tax, revenues in the city’s general fund in 1989-90 would have been $9.7 million, about the same as 1987-88 revenues, according to the preliminary budget.

The preliminary budget forecasts overall revenues and expenditures of $27.7 million. That includes money restricted to pay for public transportation, the city retirement plan and other items in addition to direct daily operating costs.

The Huntington Park Redevelopment Agency has also added to the city’s financial problems, city officials said.

The city’s redevelopment program has failed to generate enough property-tax income to meet the Redevelopment Agency’s $4.4-million annual bond payments. City officials said project delays, caused by high interest rates in the mid-1980s, are responsible for the shortfall.

City Helps Make Payments

The Redevelopment Agency has relied on the city to help make the bond payments. Sales tax revenue, which would otherwise go into the city’s general fund, has been loaned to the agency over the past several years.

The city loaned the Redevelopment Agency about $1.5 million during 1987-88. That amount is expected to be reduced to about $800,000 this year, and to about $500,000 in the next fiscal year as more projects are completed and generate tax revenue for the agency, Jeffers said.

City officials said the loans were responsible for a cash-flow crisis in 1987 that forced the City Council to eliminate 13 positions and make other spending cuts.

Resident Raul R. Perez, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council last year, complained that city residents and businesses are now going to be taxed to compensate for the money that is being funneled to the Redevelopment Agency. Members of the City Council also serve as directors of the Redevelopment Agency.

“It was poor management on their part,” Perez said after the hearing. “Now they want to get it from us.”

Mayor William P. Cunningham said in an interview, “That might be true, but we plan on getting (the loaned money) back.”

Urgency Doubted

Cunningham said the city would have needed the additional revenue from the utility tax to increase services, although it might not have been needed so soon.

The council members and virtually all the residents who testified Monday agreed that the city needs more police officers.

The number of officers in Huntington Park has remained fairly stable over the past two decades--about 56 officers in 1972, contrasted with 59 now, officials said. But the population has grown from 33,744 in 1970 to about 52,000 now, according to the U.S. Census Bureau figures and population projections.

“We can’t continue with the same numbers we have,” Councilman Thomas E. Jackson said.

The Police Department suffered the brunt of the cutbacks in 1987, losing three officer positions, and five clerical and support positions. The department is authorized to have 59 sworn officers, but two officers are injured and two positions are vacant, Police Chief Patrick M. Connolly said.

The preliminary budget includes money to restore one of the lost positions, Connolly said. But the chief says he needs at least two more sergeants and 13 more officers to meet the law enforcement demands in Huntington Park. The department also needs three more jailers, two dispatchers and two clerks, Connolly said.