Agency Leads Campaign to Retake Funds Used by State : Finances: Calleguas water district plans to file a precedent-setting lawsuit over the budget-balancing transfers.

Ventura County’s largest water wholesaler is leading an effort to reclaim nearly $6 million that it says was improperly taken from public agencies in the county to help balance the state budget.

Several other agencies in Ventura County are expected to join Calleguas Municipal Water District in a precedent-setting lawsuit that seeks to force state officials to return property tax money lost during state budget cuts in September.

The taking of property tax money historically allocated to special districts is tantamount to raising taxes on some residents without informing the public, said Donald R. Kendall, general manager of Calleguas. Facing shortfalls in funding, most affected agencies will have to increase fees or rates, he said.

In effect, Kendall said, “the state is raising peoples’ taxes deceitfully, behind their backs. The state should have done it the right way; they should have raised taxes so people would know that’s what they were doing.”

The lawsuit, which Calleguas officials say they hope to file Dec. 10, would be the first in the state to challenge the transfer of funds from the districts, said Ed Fong, a spokesman for state Controller Gray Davis.

But Penny Bohannon, deputy chief administrator and legislative analyst for Ventura County, said a lawsuit against the state is a waste of time and taxpayer money.

“We’ve sued the state on many issues, and we rarely win,” she said. “I don’t think the state is quite that stupid that they would go out on a limb” without knowing that the transfer of funds was legal, she said.

Bohannon cautioned that the extensive cuts for the 1992-1993 fiscal year will surely be followed by deeper cuts next September.

“We haven’t seen anything yet,” she said. “The rest of the money will go this next year.”

Special districts are those public agencies created by special legislation to provide a variety of services from fire protection and flood control to cemetery maintenance and water delivery.

In the final budget agreement that followed a 63-day impasse, Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Legislature decided to cover a deficit in schools funding by transferring $1.3 billion from counties, cities and special districts throughout the state.

Those cuts hit hard in Ventura County and elsewhere, where the statewide recession had already brought a decline in revenues.

The Conejo Recreation and Parks District, which has agreed to join the planned lawsuit, will lose $1.2 million in property tax funding this fiscal year, said Tex Ward, district general manager.

“We have to deal with the dollars that have been ripped off,” Ward said. “We lost 24% of our employees and cut the hours at the community and senior centers.”

Other districts whose leaders say they will join in filing the lawsuit include the Ventura Regional Sanitation District, the Ventura Port District and possibly the Casitas Municipal Water District and the United Water Conservation District.

Richard Parsons, general manager of the Ventura Port District, said the probability that the state will use special district money to balance the budget again next year is all the more reason to join the suit.

“The special districts have been operating in a responsible manner and we did not get the state into its budget problems,” he said. “These are locally paid property taxes and I think they should stay here.”

The special districts were first allocated a portion of property tax money after Proposition 13 was passed in 1978. After that legislation transferred away millions in funding, the Legislature passed a “bailout” bill that reinstated some tax dollars to the special districts, cities and counties.

Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), who fought against the transfer of funds in last summer’s budget battles, said she had no quarrel with the state’s reclaiming the money from the special districts.

But, she said, it should have been done with special legislation, like the Assembly bill that created the “bailout” funds. Then, she said, “there would have been discussions on all sides and we would have come to an agreement.”