Tax Increase Not the Answer to Jail Overcrowding Problem

This letter is in response to your editorial “Cities Should Bite the Bullet, Absorb Fees” (Jan. 20), which refers to the county’s new authority to impose fees upon cities for booking prisoners into the county jail.

This issue is critical to all Orange County residents and deserves the attention cities, the county and The Times have devoted to it. However, your treatment of the causes and implications of the state granting this authority was missing crucial facts.

First, the costs associated with booking prisoners into the county jail are paid from property tax revenues. This is not a service the county has been providing to cities for free, or with money coming from state or federal revenue sources.

Booking services are a longstanding, state-mandated county service--part of county government. If local governments are required to pay the new $154-per-prisoner booking fees, the costs will have to be made up at the city level. The same people will pay the bill--Orange County residents. They’ll just be paying it twice.

In post-Proposition 13 efforts to gain fiscal stability, cities were able to make up some of the income losses using local authority to raise revenue. However, this is a small part of the picture.

Cities undertake an ongoing process to streamline their municipal operations. City councils have reviewed their land-use guidelines, seeking to attract sales tax dollars in the form of auto centers, retail shopping centers, etc., to pay for municipal services.

Counties, as arms of the state, may have been more restricted in their ability to raise revenue. However, the editorial failed to mention that, in addition to jail booking fees, they were also allowed new authority to adopt business license and utility user fees for the unincorporated areas of the county. City residents have paid these types of fees for years, even prior to Proposition 13. This is a new source of revenue the county is apparently unwilling to consider.

The League of California Cities has an excellent proposal to address this crisis. The proposal would leave intact the county’s ability to raise revenues through business license fees or utility users taxes, but would repeal the jail booking fee.

The proposal would extend the depreciation schedule for vehicle license fees for one year, thereby creating a new revenue source that would be dedicated to support county programs. It is anticipated that this new source would generate $305 million to $320 million in its first year and substantially more in coming years.

This is consistent with the message the cities have delivered to our own Board of Supervisors at various public hearings: We recognize you have a problem, but instituting jail booking fees is not the way to solve it. Work with us and we will support efforts to solve the county’s budget problems in Sacramento. Anything less is predatory and shortsighted.

RONALD BATES, President, Orange County Division, League of California Cities