County Fire Dept. May Not Receive Prop. 172 Funds : Finance: Local officials say state law may preclude the agency from sharing in money intended to aid public safety services.

Ventura County officials said Monday that state law may prohibit county firefighters from sharing in future sales tax revenues generated from Proposition 172, despite a local initiative that includes the Fire Department as a beneficiary of those funds.

Fire Chief James Sewell said he was surprised by the news.

“That’s very disappointing if that’s what happens,” Sewell said, noting that his department would have to postpone plans to buy new firetrucks and renovate some stations.

Ken Maffei, president of the Ventura County Professional Firefighters Assn., which aggressively campaigned in support of the local initiative, said he believed the county’s reading of the law is flawed.

“That’s their interpretation,” Maffei said. “There’s no way we’re wrong. I’m not willing to concede we’re wrong.”

County Counsel James McBride did not return phone calls Monday.

But county Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon said he believes that state law precludes the Fire Department from receiving any Proposition 172 money.

“That is my understanding of state law, as I currently interpret it,” Mahon said.

Proposition 172 was approved by California voters in 1993. The initiative established a permanent half-cent sales tax intended to provide a source of funding for public safety agencies hurt by an earlier shift in local property tax revenues to the state.

But unlike the Sheriff’s Department or the district attorney’s office, the Fire Department is part of a special district that was excluded from the property tax shift, Mahon said. As a result, it is not eligible to receive money generated from Proposition 172.

“There’s no mandate to give them any money if they weren’t hurt by the shift,” Mahon said.

But Sewell said the Fire Department’s budget has been hurt by other factors, including a decline in property tax revenues. He said Proposition 172 money was intended to help all public safety agencies.

“We feel we’re part of the public safety pool,” Sewell said. “So we feel we should be a part of Proposition 172.”

After supervisors voted last year to allocate some Proposition 172 money to agencies outside public safety, Sheriff Larry Carpenter and Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury decided to launch a petition drive for a local initiative that would protect funding for public safety agencies. The initiative defined public safety as sheriff, district attorney, public defender, probation and fire services.

Last week, Carpenter, Bradbury and other organizers of the campaign turned in petitions with nearly 58,000 signatures. Only 44,000 signatures are needed to force a special election.

Maffei said about 100 firefighters helped collect the signatures for the ballot initiative over the last five months. He said he is confident that the initiative, which could be adopted by supervisors as an ordinance, would close any loophole in state law.

But Mahon said that state law would take precedence over the local initiative. “You can’t factor in a local initiative that says in effect that state law is no good,” he said.

Maffei said he again believed Mahon’s interpretation of the law is wrong. He said the union’s attorneys had reviewed the local initiative before signatures were collected and found it to be sound.

“I don’t know that the auditor is qualified to make interpretations of the law,” he said.

Otto Stoll, president of Citizens for a Safe Ventura County, which helped organize the petition drive, said he also believed that Mahon is wrong.

“We know of no legal reason for the Fire Department to be excluded from Proposition 172 funding,” he said.

If firefighters are denied a share of the money, Maffei said, they may decide to take legal action against the county or the state.

“I suppose we might contemplate doing that,” he said. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”