HUNTINGTON BEACH : $50 Yearly Fee Urged for Property Owners

Property owners in most of the Huntington Beach Union High School District would pay a $50 yearly fee to maintain recreational facilities on school sites under a proposal to be considered later this month, according to an engineering report.

The proposed maintenance fee, similar to one approved last week by the Orange Unified School District, would be assessed on 67,800 properties in the Huntington Beach City, Ocean View and Westminster school districts. Together, those feeder elementary districts constitute more than three-fourths of the high school district’s attendance area, covering Huntington Beach and parts of Fountain Valley and Westminster.

The only section of the high school district that would not be impacted by the the proposal is the attendance area of the Fountain Valley School District, which rejected an invitation to join the West Orange County Schools Financing Authority.

The participating elementary districts and the high school district formed the authority to decide on whether to form a Maintenance Assessment District, which would tack the maintenance fee onto property-tax bills. The proposal will be considered at a public hearing on July 25.

Proponents say the fee is needed to help pay for construction and maintenance of swimming pools, stadiums, soccer fields, meeting rooms and other facilities used for community activities not related to schools. But opponents, led by the Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley Board of Realtors, argue that the proposal undercuts the principles of Proposition 13 because it would assess a fee on property owners without voter approval.

The Maintenance Assessment District is proposed under the state Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972, which allows public agencies to charge property owners--without approval of voters--for maintenance, service and improvement of facilities used by the public.

The proposed fee is $20 per year more than the charge approved by Orange Unified’s Board of Trustees. The joint authority’s fee would be $50 a year, split into a $25 charge to support the high school district and another $25 to benefit the elementary school district in which the property owner resides, the report said.

The proposal would raise more than $4.3 million during 1991-92 for the four school districts, of which $2.4 million would go to the high school district, according to an engineering report prepared by Anaheim-based Community Systems Associates Inc. The remainder of the revenue would be divided among the three elementary districts--Huntington Beach City would receive $710,000, Ocean View $700,000 and Westminster $532,000.

About half the money allocated to each district would go toward operating and upkeep costs. The other half would go toward payments on $26.7 million in bonds the joint authority plans to issue to pay for capital improvement costs of recreational facilities.

The Orange Unified School District and the Whittier School District are the only districts in the state that have formed Maintenance Assessment Districts. In addition to the four West Orange County school districts, at least five other districts, strapped by the continuing state budget crisis, are considering the fund-raising move.