Informed Opinions on Today’s Topics : Shifting Cash From Localities to the Schools

California’s $52.1-billion budget for the fiscal year that began Thursday contains a measure that would shift $2.6 billion in property-tax revenues from local government to the public schools. As a result, Los Angeles County government will lose nearly $300 million. Lawmakers argue that part of the loss will be offset by a six-month extension of a half-cent sales tax that would have expired June 30. Voters will have an opportunity to make the tax permanent in November.

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What impact will the budget’s property-tax revenue shift have on services in Los Angeles County?

Gary Wells, director of finance for the L.A. County Department of Health Services:

“Early assessment indicates substantial adverse impact on health services. The county’s proposed budget presents a range of options for health services reductions, designed to save more than $190 million over net costs, which are already reduced by an assumed 8.25% salary cut for all employees. All of the options include hospital closures. The annual impact would be a projected loss of 47,000 hospital admissions or 1.9 million outpatient visits and 6,000 jobs.”

Edmund D. Edelman, L.A. County Board of Supervisors chairman:

“It’s a terribly shortsighted approach to our fiscal problems, and it puts Los Angeles County and the people we serve at grave peril. Schools deserve adequate funding, but they should be paid for by state funds, not taken out of the hide of local governments and their property taxpayers.”

Mark Slavkin, Board of Education member:

“The shift of property-tax revenues from counties to school districts allowed the governor to keep his commitment to maintain K-12 school funding at the same per-pupil rate. As a result, our Valley schools will not experience additional cuts to basic school programs, pay cuts or layoffs. Unfortunately, by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul,’ the state budget still threatens many of our students. The massive cuts to county health and social services will no doubt hurt these children and their families, magnifying the challenges faced in our classrooms.”

David A. Roberti, state Senate president pro tem:

“It is a budget that recognizes that state government has no money with little ability to tax people any further and an awful lot of important services that exceed our ability to pay for them. It’s a sacrifice budget and it was a budget which put priority on education and law enforcement and I guess if we have to put priorities anywhere in the 1990s in California, those are two places where it has to be.”

Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of Local 660, Service Employees International Union, which represents 40,000 county workers:

“Wilson’s property-tax grab will have a devastating effect on Los Angeles County’s already strained social safety net, will retard the region’s economic recovery, and further deteriorates the region’s quality of life at a time that we can ill afford it.”

David Flint, chief of finance and planning for the L.A. County Public Library:

“The proposed county library budget approved by the Board of Supervisors on June 22 was based on a one-third loss in current revenues, and would require the closure of 10 county library outlets and the reduction in service hours in all other libraries to two to four days per week. The local property tax shift in the state budget will now mean a further level of reductions in county library service, including the possible closure of up to 50 libraries . . . “