La Jolla Losing Out on Taxes, Study Says : Finance: Residents paid $30.9 million but got back only $23.5 million, according to a report paid for by a group urging cityhood.

La Jollans are being short-changed when it comes to the services their tax dollars are buying with the city of San Diego, according to a recently released study.

The financial study, paid for by Incorporate La Jolla, which wants the community to become a city, found that, in the 1989-1990 fiscal year, La Jollans paid $30.9 million in taxes and other fees but received only $23.5 million in expenses from city coffers--a $7.4-million discrepancy.

The purpose of the $7,500 study, Incorporate La Jolla officials have said, was to compare La Jolla’s ratio of taxes paid to services given and decide whether it is feasible for the neighborhood to start calling its own budgetary shots.

“I’d say it’s very possible,” said John McTighe, whose John McTighe & Associates, a local government fiscal consulting firm, completed the study. “If I were them, I’d be encouraged. If some other hurdles can be scaled, I think La Jollans can go forward with their idea for independence.”

The idea, however, is not popular with San Diego officials, who have resisted the idea of La Jolla’s incorporation because, many say, they fear losing the wealthy tax base that La Jolla offers.

McTighe said Thursday that city staff first balked at providing the necessary statistics.

“That was pretty much the opinion of the people on the Incorporate La Jolla board--that the city didn’t want to cooperate because they didn’t like the possible answers we might have come up with,” he said.

“After several months and discussions with the city manager and Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, we pretty much got the answers to the questions we had.”

San Diego city officials denied Thursday that they refused to help what for many has become an unpopular project.

“That’s just not the case,” said Joann Johnson, chief of staff for Wolfsheimer. “As I recall, we were involved at the time with the city budget, and this thing was very time-consuming.

“I remember looking at the stuff they were asking for--and the way they asked for things, it just was not feasible to do. We had to scale back what we could do for them.”

Members of Incorporate La Jolla could not be reached for comment.

McTighe, however, acknowledged that the statistics were often based on extrapolations of available information.

“For example, the city does not break down, geographically, how it pays for, say, the salary of the city manager. To get La Jolla’s share for some things, we had to make some assumptions and pro-rate some things.”

McTighe said the study was unable to make similar tax-for-services comparisons either with other areas of San Diego or with other cities in the state.

“Unfortunately, we’ve got nothing to compare our figures against,” he said. “We were sort of breaking new ground. I mean, we can’t exactly compare our facts with the situation in Rancho Bernardo.”

The next step in La Jolla’s incorporation efforts, McTighe said, is for the board to direct him to complete a study to determine what services La Jolla would require as a city.

“From a financial standpoint, the current study says clearly that La Jolla could function as a city today with the revenues available to it and with current levels of service.

“But the question that still goes begging is what levels of service would La Jollans want from any new city government?” McTighe said. “My opinion is--and studies have shown that--they’d want a bigger police presence with quicker response times.

“And that, as everyone knows, takes more tax money.”