COUNTYWIDE : State Senate Votes to Restore Funds

The state Senate passed a bill Thursday that will restore $5 million a year in guaranteed state funding to Ventura County that was inadvertently deleted from state law last year.

The bill, sponsored by Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria), now goes to the Assembly for final passage. Barring any unforeseen problems, it then will be sent to Gov. Deukmejian for his signature.

Wright said she knows of no opposition to the bill because it merely reinstates a provision that had been accidentally omitted from a 1988 law.

The bill provides that Ventura County’s net share from the Trial Court Funding Act of 1988 will be $5 million per year, plus a cost-of-living increase. That brings the county’s share for the next fiscal year to $5.6 million.

The Trial Court Funding Act requires the state to take over the financing of the trial court system in all counties, but it requires counties to return a portion of their savings to cities within their jurisdictions that receive little or no money from property taxes.

The Trial Court Funding Act will save Ventura County $7.3 million in costs to run the court system for 1990-1991, said Dwayne L. McWaters, the county’s chief deputy auditor-controller.

But the county will have to share $3.1 million of its savings with cities that collect little or no property taxes, including Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Camarillo, McWaters said. Under these calculations, the county’s net savings next year will be $4.2 million.

If the bill passes, the state would have to pay the county an extra $1.4 million to make up the difference between the $4.2 million in savings and the $5.6 million guaranteed funding level.

Ventura County needed special legislation guaranteeing $5 million plus cost-of-living adjustments because it benefited less from the Trial Court Funding Act than any other county in the state, McWaters said.