7 Agencies File Suit to Recoup Property Tax Revenues : Funding: The special districts seek a court writ that would reinstate $4.7 million diverted to schools yearly.

Ventura County’s largest water supplier and other special districts filed suit Tuesday against the state in an effort to recoup local property tax revenues shifted to schools after last year’s budget wars.

The Calleguas Municipal Water District and six other Ventura County public agencies are asking a Superior Court judge to do what higher courts would not: grant a writ of mandate that would reinstate $4.7 million in local funds lost to Sacramento each year.

A similar lawsuit was filed with the state Supreme Court after last year’s record budget stalemate between Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Legislature.

But both the high court and a state appellate court refused to hear the case.

The special districts contend that Ventura County property tax dollars are being illegally diverted from local projects to public education.

“Property taxes are designed to be distributed among the various special districts,” said Thomas P. Anderle, the Santa Barbara attorney representing Calleguas. “For the state to take that money and spread it among the schools is not within their authority.

“There is no justifiable legal authority for the Legislature to have done what they have done in this case,” Anderle said. “Under the circumstances, we want to test it in court.”

The suit seeks an order that a state law allowing the tax shift be ruled unconstitutional and that the state be ordered to return the tax revenue that has so far been taken away.

Calleguas stands to lose $1.8 million annually unless the law is ruled illegal, according to the suit. The combined Ventura County losses make up the $4.7 million.

“Every year, for eternity, we’re going to lose 40% of our property tax revenue,” said Calleguas General Manager Donald R. Kendall, who also is named as a plaintiff in the case. “This year, they were going to take all of it,” he said.

Kendall said special district ratepayers could be charged more in coming years if the agencies do not win the suit and get the law changed.

Other plaintiffs in the case include the Camrosa Water District, Casitas Municipal Water District, Conejo Recreation and Park District, Ojai Valley Sanitation District, United Water Conservation District, Ventura Port District, Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. and individual taxpayers Kendall and Patrick H. Miller.

“We feel the transfer of property tax dollars is a circumvention of Proposition 13,” said Michael Saliba, executive director of the taxpayers association. “The local people should be able to vote on where their tax dollars are spent.”

The case initially was brought before the state Supreme Court in December. But the high court refused to consider the request, instead referring the litigation to the state Court of Appeal with a recommendation that it be heard, Anderle said.

When the appellate court also refused to hear the case, Anderle and the plaintiffs’ other attorneys brought the suit back to the state Supreme Court, which in April again refused to decide the case.

“I think it’s a political hot potato nobody wants to deal with,” Kendall said.

Similar cases are under way in other Superior Courts in California. In Sacramento County, local fire districts are suing to reclaim tax dollars shifted to other areas, and the city of Alhambra is fighting in Los Angeles County Superior Court for its redevelopment dollars.