Roos Sees Deficits for Oakland : Raiders: He says proposed deal could cause city to lose $180 million or more over 15 years. Some officials question his impartiality in the matter.

A legislative staff analysis of Oakland officials’ deal to bring the Raiders back to their city indicates that, contrary to assertions that the deal would show a surplus of $19.6 million over 15 years, it actually would run a $181.9-million deficit.

And that presumes that 36,000 premium stadium seats to be marketed by Oakland and Alameda County under the proposed agreement would be sold out every year, Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), chairman of an Assembly subcommittee on bonded indebtedness, said Thursday.

In a slightly less optimistic ticket-selling scenario developed by Chicago consultants hired by Oakland to evaluate the deal, the deficit would run $254.2 million, Roos said. Any deficits would be an obligation of local taxpayers.

Another state official questioned whether $75 million in tax-free revenue bonds anticipated for the Oakland bid would be issued.

The disclosures came during a hearing conducted by Roos and Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Gardena), chairman of the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee.

Afterward, Ezra Rapport, chief policy analyst in the Oakland city manager’s office, called the legislative deficit estimates “just ridiculous.”

Rapport conceded that some of the city’s figures are subject to change and different interpretations. He also confirmed assertions by Roos that the city had refused to turn over to legislative staff members the city’s own revenue and expense flow charts for the Raider agreement. He said the figures are not final, but that the legislative staff could not do realistic estimates without the city’s flow charts.

Only County Administrative Officer Steve Szalay appeared at the legislative hearing, with Mayor Lionel Wilson and other key city and county officials declining to appear.

Officials here have questioned Roos’ impartiality. Roos, who is close to Los Angeles Coliseum officials and a season-ticket holder of the Raiders in Los Angeles, had sharply questioned at a similar hearing three years ago the viability of the 1987 Irwindale offer to move the Raiders there. Many of his critical assertions about that agreement, however, turned out to be correct, and the Irwindale deal collapsed.

Thursday, Roos said a study of figures that Oakland officials have made public in a summary of the proposed agreement showed many misstatements when matched with the detailed language of the full agreement.

In estimates for a 15-year period, Oakland officials have overstated the interest they would earn on ticket and other receipts by $29.5 million, he said. They have understated bond redemption costs by $27.8 million, understated loans to be made to the Raiders by $11.1 million, understated the Raiders’ share of municipal and county ticket sales by $47.6 million, underestimated stadium reconstruction costs by $11.4 million, and made miscellaneous other expense understatements of $9.8 million, Roos said.

Szalay did agree with Roos during the hearing when the legislator suggested that the Raider agreement had been structured to give the team millions of dollars in federal and state tax savings, largely by calling certain payments “loans” when they would actually never be repaid and were, in reality, income to the team.

Roos said he wondered how much in tax revenues the government would lose, but Szalay said no estimate was available.

Also testifying at the hearing was Theresa M. Steffen, executive secretary of the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee, the state group that is scheduled to rule next Thursday on whether Oakland and Alameda County will be allowed to issue $75 million in tax-exempt bonds to get the Raider deal started before ticket receipts are scheduled to come in.

Steffen said the bond approval request has “uphill sledding” because the committee prefers to approve bonds for housing projects or projects that create large numbers of permanent jobs. She said the state is permitted to approve just $1.4 billion in these bonds this year, while it has $3 billion in requests.

The legislative estimate of deficits under the Raider agreement was predicated on the assumption that tax-exempt bonds would not be approved, thus adding $27 million to $30 million to the costs of servicing bonds, which would be taxable.