Cities Tell State to Stop Draining Local Coffers Dry : Budgets: Representatives from 13 cities in meetings with two senators complain that they can no longer afford to bail out state with their sales and property tax revenues.

Local governments probably will take bigger hits in fiscal year 1993-94 than the year before as the state scrambles to find ways to balance its budget, two state legislators from Orange County warned city officials Friday.

In separate meetings, state Sens. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and John R. Lewis (R-Orange) were told that local governments can no longer keep up with the state’s continually increasing demands for local funds.

During a meeting in Huntington Beach with representatives from 13 cities, Bergeson promised to help curb the state government’s seemingly endless appetite for cities’ sales and property tax revenues.

“I will do all that I can to assist the cities in my district with the financial difficulties they are facing as a result of state-mandated programs, unrealistic regulatory requirements, and the inevitable losses from severely restricted revenues,” Bergeson told the group of mayors and city mangers.

Lewis, who met with Brea City Council members, said: “This is a brutal year in Sacramento. “There is no good news. (The budget) . . . is another painful thing we have to go through.”

At her 1 1/2-hour meeting at the Huntington Beach Civic Center, Bergeson listened as one city official after another outlined the deep budget cuts many of them will be forced to make if the state continues drawing funds from local governments to make up for California’s budget deficit.

In order to balance the $51.2-billion budget proposed by Gov. Pete Wilson in January, the state hopes to get $1.5 billion from the federal government and another $2.6 billion by shifting property and sales tax revenues away from local governments.

Last year, the state took $1.1 billion in property taxes from cities, counties and special districts and gave it to schools.

Several Orange County cities, already strapped by their own financial difficulties, have protested the state action, saying it amounts to balancing the state budget on the backs of local governments.

“We’re tired of the state dipping into the pockets of the cities when it has problems,” Los Alamitos Mayor Ronald Bates told Bergeson. “The system is broken, and we need leadership at the top to fix it.”

In a statement that brought murmurs of agreement from other representatives, Los Alamitos City Manager Robert C. Dunek blamed the state’s fiscal crisis on systemic flaws in the budgeting process and the short-term perspective of many state legislators.

“We have 20-year problems being dealt with by five-year plans written by people with two-year political horizons using one-year budgets,” Dunek lamented.

Attending the meeting were representatives from Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Los Alamitos, Tustin, Laguna Hills, Laguna Beach, Tustin, Cypress, Irvine, Westminster, Costa Mesa, Garden Grove and La Palma.

On the other side of the county, Brea council members took advantage of Lewis’ visit to express concerns about losing further revenues to the state.

“We take offense in (the state) taking away property taxes,” Councilman Glenn G. Parker told Lewis. “We think the money should stay with us because it serves as incentive for local development.”

Last year, Parker said, Brea lost $2.2 million in Redevelopment Agency funds and $310,000 in property taxes to the state. This year, the city could lose an estimated $3.5 million in Redevelopment Agency funds and $600,000 in property taxes, he said.

Parker and representatives of other cities have demanded that the state find permanent solutions to its budget problems, such as more spending cuts, rather than taking revenues from cities.