City Considers Suing County Over Taxes : Moorpark: Officials say they will first try friendly persuasion to obtain a greater share of revenues from property levies.

The Moorpark City Council, concerned that the city is not getting its fair share of property tax revenue, is considering suing the county government.

Moorpark homeowners and businesses paid about $15 million in property taxes to the county last year, the fourth highest amount among the county’s 10 cities.

Yet Moorpark gets back the least property tax revenue per capita to pay for police protection, parks maintenance and other services, according to a 1991 study by the Local Agency Formation Commission.

The council plans to debate various strategies for increasing property tax revenue during a closed session Wednesday. City officials said they will first try to persuade the county to increase Moorpark’s share of property tax revenues. If friendly persuasion fails, they said, they may have to take the matter to court.

Some city officials said the county underestimated Moorpark’s expenses when the city was incorporated in 1983.

“That’s something the county did to us when we incorporated,” Councilman Roy E. Talley Jr. said. “I think it was just the county trying to keep as much of its own revenues as possible.”

But Robert L. Braitman, who oversaw Moorpark’s incorporation when he was executive director of LAFCO, said the problem arose because Moorpark is the only Ventura County city founded after the Proposition 13 tax revolt of 1978.

Since Proposition 13 passed, new cities can no longer levy their own property taxes to help pay for city services. Instead, he said, they have to “get taxes from an existing agency.”

When Moorpark was incorporated, it was assigned property taxes that had previously gone to Ventura County. Under state law, the new city’s property tax share was based on what the county previously spent on police and planning services in the area.

Braitman acknowledged that residents of cities often expect better government services than residents in unincorporated rural areas. Furthermore, Moorpark’s finances have been strained by its exponential growth over the past nine years.

In addition to its relatively low share of property taxes, Moorpark also has the lowest sales tax revenue per capita among the county’s cities because it has no malls or car dealerships, according to the LAFCO report.

And it is the only city to earn no hotel taxes because it’s the only one without a hotel.

“We are the lowest revenue-generating city in the county,” Talley said.

Moorpark’s low flow of revenue has taken a toll on city services, Mayor Paul W. Lawrason Jr. said.

“Do we have a teen center?” he asked, comparing his city’s benefits to Thousand Oaks’ abundant services. “Are we able to take care of our senior population adequately?”

Another measure of Moorpark’s limited revenues is the size of its city staff, officials said.

For example, although the city is the fastest-growing in Ventura County, its community development staff has only nine employees, compared to 38 in neighboring Thousand Oaks.

“You would not believe the workload that our people are under,” Talley said. “Every department needs at least two more people in it.”

Moorpark officials have been rankled about their share of property tax revenues ever since the city was founded.

But officials said the issue has become critical now that the state is threatening to balance its budget partly by raiding money that traditionally goes to cities. The state is considering, for instance, taking vehicle license fees, which make up 20% of Moorpark’s general fund revenues.

The only way the city could sustain such a cut without drastically reducing police protection and other public services would be to increase revenues from other sources, such as property taxes, Lawrason said.

But a county auditor pointed out that Moorpark will be able to get more property taxes only at the expense of the county, school districts or other public agencies.

Because Proposition 13 forbids levying new property taxes, the revenues available are “a fixed pie,” said Dwayne McWaters, one of the county’s top auditors.

“Any time you increase the slice for somebody, somebody else is going to lose.”