The California Budget: Local Impact : ANALYSIS : Counties Fight State in Modern Tax Revolt

Like participants in America’s first tax revolt, framers of the 1993 Boston Tea Party movement in California are fighting what they consider an unfair confiscation of taxes by a faraway government.

But this time, instead of colonists and a king, it is county supervisors who are fighting state officials, who, under the terms of the state budget accord they approved earlier this week, will shift $2.6 billion in property tax revenue from the local governments to Sacramento. The state plans to use the funds to finance schools.

So far, at least 50 of the state’s 58 counties have passed so-called Boston Tea Party resolutions, in which they are refusing to send the state disputed property tax revenue that they collect.

Los Angeles County officials, who were the first to approve such an ordinance, say the move is more than posturing. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he and other county officials around the state have considered this kind of action for nearly a decade, and the county’s legal staff is already drawing up the papers to file as soon as the state budget is signed by the governor.

State officials are resigned to the fact that the issue will be bitterly fought in court, but they are also confident that the state Constitution is on their side.

Some counties, notably Los Angeles, want to take things a step further and refuse to cooperate with the state on a range of enterprises, such as providing lifeguards at state beaches.

“We will continue to fight,” said county Board of Supervisors Chairman Ed Edelman. “We have a good case, and we have no choice. We can’t take this kind of a hit and just stand idly by.”

Los Angeles County alone is expected to lose $300 million as a result of the property-tax shift, state and county officials said.

Edelman said that he has been assured by County Counsel DeWitt Clinton that the county has a strong legal case based on state statutes and legal decisions. Edelman said that it is clear in the law that schools were not to be financed by property taxes.

“They will have to take us to court to get that money,” Edelman said.

The county will base its case on a landmark 1978 California Supreme Court ruling, which restructured the way schools are financed, and state Propositions 98 and 13. The ruling and the propositions specify that property taxes should not be used to fund education, officials said.

In preparation for a court showdown, Clinton and his senior staff members met in Sacramento with their counterparts from around the state Wednesday to map out legal strategy. Supervisors from dozens of counties are scheduled to gather there today to coordinate plans.

Antonovich said the counties may seek a Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of their ordinances in the next several weeks.

State officials say the movement has no legal basis and is destined for a quick demise.

Dan Schnur, a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson, said the counties’ threatened action is “1,000% illegal.”

“The county has a legal obligation (under the state Constitution) to provide the transfer of the property tax, and they are expected to live up to that,” Schnur said. Beyond the legal obligation, he said, there is a moral one. “The ultimate victims are the children of Los Angeles and the other counties” whose schools should receive the disputed tax funds,” he said.

The attorney general’s office, which would represent the governor and Legislature in any such legal case, would not comment on the county’s threatened action because of the likelihood that it will end up in court, said Denise Davis, spokeswoman for the attorney general. Other officials with that office said no opinion has been written on the issue.

But Schnur said, “There have been rumblings about this going around for awhile, and the legal alternatives have been checked very carefully.”

Brad Sherman, a member of the State Board of Equalization, which adjudicates tax disputes, agreed that the state has the authority to apportion the property-tax funds and force the county to make the distribution.

“We have never sought a legal opinion, but it is well established that the state determines the division of property taxes,” said Sherman, who opposed the tax shift.

But Sherman said it is possible that the state may not get involved in any court battle over the funds. Rather, it would be local school districts, the intended beneficiaries of the tax shift, that would be likely to sue the counties for release of the funds.

It is not true “that the state hijacked the money for itself,” Sherman said. “As a practical matter, all (the state) has done is move the funds from one local governmental entity to another”--from the counties and cities to the school districts.

If the schools are forced to sue to get the money budgeted for them, “it will be tough (politically) for the county supervisors,” Sherman said.

Still, Edelman said, “I want to help the school districts, but I don’t want to see it come out of the hides of the people we serve.”