COMMENTARY ON FUNDING CUTS : Legislature Plunders Cities’ Revenue to Balance State Budget : Sacramento is considering bailing itself out with money citizens shell out for local services.

You dial 911 and a recorded voice at the other end of the line says: “Please deposit $4.50 for the first three minutes.”

The fire department paramedics roll up in front of your home and, before rendering aid, check a list to see if you subscribe to your local emergency services program. If you don’t, firemen will have to secure a commitment for cash payment up front before services can be rendered.

These chilling scenarios are purely fiction today; however, each passing day of the Legislature’s state budget deliberations brings them a step closer to being reality.

That’s because more than $100 million in local revenue from Orange County cities alone is on the chopping block in Sacramento. That total could go as high as $130 million, depending upon the method used to calculate a proposed shift in local revenue from cities. These cuts are proposed on top of actions cities have already taken to roll back spending and reduce staffs.

Sacramento’s top targets include redirecting property taxes, historically designed to support local programs, away from cities and transferring vehicle license fees that help underwrite community services to counties for countywide programs.

It used to be that city services and their costs were spread throughout the community in the form of property taxes and other locally generated revenue sources, such as sales and hotel bed taxes. Our residents are understandably concerned over the trend in recent years to charge user fees for city programs.

Voter initiatives and changes in state laws over the past 15 years have forced cities to find increasingly creative ways to finance local programs. Each city has developed its own additional sources of revenue--including user fees--impacting the community differently than its neighbor next door.

For example, one Orange County city depends heavily upon hotel bed taxes, which provide nearly 33% of its budget, the cost of police services in that community. Other cities rely upon a historic property tax or sales tax base to provide services. No two communities are alike.

The philosophy behind user fees is simple: Those who participate in a program should bear the cost of that program.

The state Legislature’s philosophy is equally simple and decidedly cynical: The taxpayers will be more willing to tax themselves for the local services that they can see tangible evidence of every day.

In other words, the state is saying that it will take your local revenue that support your city services to balance the state’s budget in the belief that you, the taxpayer, will be willing to pay more to maintain the city services you already receive.

That’s right. They’ll take the money you already pay for local services to bail out the state and then allow you to pay more for those services locally.

The theory of allowing individual communities to vote to tax themselves to support local programs or increased law enforcement, for example, has merit.

But don’t be fooled. While offering revenue-raising authority to cities under the guise of local determination, the Legislature is really thinking about spiriting away our local revenue to balance the budget in Sacramento.

After the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, cities cut their municipal budgets and slashed 10,000 jobs statewide. In the current fiscal year, cities statewide have already eliminated an additional 4,200 jobs, even though 70% of the communities have had to increase taxes or fees. During the same period, schools statewide increased their staffs by 7,200 positions and counties increased their employment by 7,500 jobs, driven by state mandates and increased social and health services caseloads.

In the past two years of the state budget process, city revenue statewide has been reduced by nearly $240 million. These reductions in revenue to local communities have included a 50% reduction in non-parking fines and forfeitures, imposition of jail booking fees and revenue calculation fees on cities, and reductions of cigarette taxes and liquor license fees.

The state has taken local revenue despite the fact that cities aren’t a part of state government and receive no state general-fund dollars.

While counties and schools are funded in part by the state’s general fund and carry out state programs, cities use their own revenue sources to pay for local services.

Yet the state budget cuts and revenue shifts of the past two years have forced cities to increasingly implement user fees and other participant-based revenue mechanisms to continue popular local programs.

While a pay-per-call system has not yet been implemented or considered for 911 and emergency services, it may be inevitable if the Legislature acts again to further reduce local revenue during its current budget deliberations.

City residents need to understand that it is their state representatives who are pulling the strings on municipal purses. They need to understand what is at stake.