LAGUNA NIGUEL : Community Services Budget Slashed 20%

Recent alterations in the state budget will take a 20% bite out of the community services district coffers for the next year, but City Manager Tim Casey said the cut is manageable and could have been much worse if not for last-minute lobbying by city officials.

“The bad news is that we’re losing $1.1 million,” Casey said. “The good news is it could have been more than $2.8 million if we had not caught it before it got to the governor’s desk.” Annual property tax revenues for the district have been about $5 million, Casey said.

Although the Legislature passed its 1993-94 budget in June and Gov. Pete Wilson signed it into law, its impact on the city was not certain until earlier this month when Wilson signed three “cleanup” bills intended to clarify conflicting or unclear provisions in the state’s annual fiscal plan.

In some respects, Casey said, the state’s action comes at a good time. The community services district already has funded projects included in its two-year public improvements program that runs through 1994. The district maintains and improves parks and recreation facilities, street medians and street lighting.

“Because we’ve been so aggressive in the last two- to three-year period, there aren’t any significant projects waiting to be done,” Casey said. “It’ll have no impact on services. It will have an impact on the pace with which we will approve projects in the future.”

One immediate effect was a decision by the Park and Recreation Commission on Oct. 11 to delay indefinitely discussions on the need for cultural arts facilities in the city. The commission decided not to schedule a cultural arts workshop in November after hearing Casey’s report on the revenue cut, said parks and recreation director Kerry Bartelt.

In search of alternative money sources to bail out the state’s troubled finances, the governor and lawmakers last year began claiming portions of property tax revenues previously earmarked for counties, cities and special districts.

Until this year, community services districts governed by cities--such as Laguna Niguel’s--had been exempt from those measures. The Legislature, however, removed that exemption during budget negotiations in June and passed a bill that would have shifted more than half of the community services district’s property tax revenues to the state.

Casey said he and Mayor Thomas W. Wilson traveled to Sacramento in August, and Casey returned in September, to lobby against the change. With the help of local legislators, bills were reworked that reduced the state’s take from the community services district’s property tax revenues, Casey said.

For complicated reasons tied to 1979’s Proposition 13, community services districts in Laguna Niguel and Cypress were the only ones in Orange County affected by the change, Casey said.