10 Cities Sue Over Withheld Tax Funds : Finances: They say the county has wrongly charged fees for booking prisoners and collecting property levies.

Ventura County’s 10 cities filed a long-threatened lawsuit Thursday against the county for withholding more than $1.3 million in property taxes to cover overdue fees that the cities have refused to pay.

The suit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, asks a judge to return the property taxes to the cities and force the county to rescind the laws imposing the fees.

One fee charges cities $120 for every prisoner booked through the County Jail. The other charges cities, schools and other special districts for the cost of collecting property taxes.

Among the objections made in the 42-page suit is a claim that the fees are unconstitutional because they represent, in essence, special taxes that have not been approved by voters.

County officials have rejected the allegations, saying the fees are legally binding and have been authorized by the Legislature.

Attorney J. Robert Flandrick, who represents the cities in the suit, said city officials are willing to meet with the county to try to resolve the dispute.

“We shouldn’t have one public agency suing another,” he said. “That is ridiculous.”

The suit marks the latest episode in a continuing battle over the two fees that the Board of Supervisors approved in September to make up for $6 million in state budget cuts. The Legislature gave all counties in the state such authority last year.

But cities and school districts in Ventura County have refused to pay the fees, saying the charges are unfair and would cut too deep into their bare-bones budgets.

Most school districts in the county have joined districts statewide in a class-action suit that challenges the Legislature’s right to give counties the authority to impose the property-tax collection fee.

Since the fees were adopted, the county has sent monthly bills to collect the charges. At the same time, city officials have written letters to the county to protest the fees.

In May, county Auditor Norman R. Hawkes decided to withhold millions of dollars in property taxes from the cities and school districts to make up for unpaid booking and tax-collection fees.

The move raised a firestorm of criticism from city officials, who joined forces and threatened to sue the county.

In hopes of averting the lawsuit, County Supervisor Maggie Erickson Kildee suggested Tuesday that the county change the way the booking fee is charged. Under her proposal, the county would charge cities only for bookings that exceed each city’s average number of prisoners.

Flandrick said Camarillo City Manager Bill Little will represent the cities in discussing the proposal by Erickson Kildee.

Supervisor Vicky Howard said she is optimistic that the dispute can be resolved before the matter goes to trial.

“It is disappointing when a taxpayers group sues another taxpayers group,” she said. “Only the taxpayer is hurt.”

Cities in at least eight other California counties--including Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Bernardino--have filed similar lawsuits, said JoAnne Speers, general counsel of the League of California Cities.

She said there is a possibility that the Legislature will repeal the laws that allow counties to charge the fees. But she said that would probably not resolve such lawsuits because the state cannot force counties to give back money they have already collected.

“Everybody seems to agree that these fees were a bad idea,” she said. “But the question is, how do you replace that money.”

The suit filed against Ventura County claims that the county should not charge fees to book prisoners because it already receives local funds to operate the jail.

James L. McBride, the county’s legal counsel, rejected that claim. He said the Legislature gave counties the power to impose the booking fee because counties did not have the funds needed to operate their jails.

The suit also alleges that the booking fees exceed the actual cost for processing prisoners through the County Jail, a claim that McBride called “absolutely false.”

He said the fee was based on dividing the total cost to the county for booking prisoners by the number of prisoners.