Council OKs Utility Tax, Avoids Service Cuts : Finances: The levy will appear on next month’s bills. It will help replace expected losses in state revenues.

Bell residents will pay up to $1.4 million a year more for their utilities to help balance the city’s budget and avoid drastic cuts in police and street maintenance.

A 10% tax on electricity, water, gas and telephone use will show up on August bills and cost each household up to $200 a year, said City Administrator John M. Bramble. The tax will drop to 8% next year, 5% the following year and be eliminated in 1995.

Commercial utility bills, which are generally higher than residential bills, also will be subject to the three-year tax.

Bramble said the utility tax will replace money lost because of expected state budget cuts. Without the additional revenues, Bell’s general fund would be about $5.4 million, he said, which is not enough to run the city.

Bell, along with every other city in the state, is bracing for a loss of cigarette, motor vehicle and property taxes that cities normally share with the state. The Legislature is considering keeping those revenues to help balance the state budget.

Other Southeast cities that may approve utility taxes to make up for budget shortfalls include Huntington Park, Bellflower, Artesia, Norwalk and La Mirada.

Bramble and Councilman George Cole said the council had no choice but to impose the tax.

“It was either that or stop being a city altogether,” said Cole, who along with Mayor Jay B. Price and Councilman Ray Johnson voted Monday night in favor of the tax. Councilmen Rolf Janssen and George F. Bass voted against it.

Janssen and Bass argued that they could not ask residents to pay additional taxes unless city personnel agreed to forgo a 5% pay increase written into their contracts. Although the police officers union agreed to delay its salary raise, the general services union, which represents city hall workers, voted against the proposal.

“It is not fair to ask the low-income families in Bell to pay more when at the same time the employees are getting a pay raise,” Janssen said. “If you want to have the citizens sacrifice, then the public servants should as well.”

In June, the council held four community meetings at which members told outraged citizens about alternatives to the tax.

“We would have had to take massive cuts in all departments (without the tax),” Cole said. “The tax is going to be hefty, but I think people finally realized that they would rather pay a little more each year for three years than to see all our programs gutted,” he said.

Without the $1.4 million it expects to raise from the tax, the city would be forced to lay off at least one third of its work force, said Bramble, including 13 of 43 sworn police officers. Parks and recreation programs and all street maintenance would have been discontinued, and the community center would close.

Neighborhood Watch, the DARE drug prevention program and the juvenile diversion program also would have been eliminated.