Go Ahead, Explore New Revenue Sources : Supervisors Have Fewer Options, While O.C. Legislators Have Been Less Than Helpful

When the county’s bankruptcy recovery team said there was no viable Plan B on the first run through the numbers, some of the very ideas that have appeared in the world after Measure R were looked at.

The search for revenue after the defeat of the sales tax measure also has turned to other fronts such as a tippler tax on alcohol, which also is being sought by strapped Los Angeles County, and an additional 17-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes. Before his announced resignation, County Chief Executive Officer William J. Popejoy summarized some of those newer proposals in a memo to the Board of Supervisors. In addition to the so-called sin taxes, there was talk of taxing entertainment, and creating a special countywide assessment district to help pay for such services as police and fire protection.

Last week, the latest Plan B surfaced with talk of taking sales and property tax money from the transportation agency, special districts and cities to plug the shortfall. Taking money from the people who await 100 cents on the dollar may seem to some like a neat trick if you can get away with it. But the premise of bankruptcy recovery has and should be full restitution. A plan that puts local services at risk is not really recovery at all. And once again, the old discredited plan to divert transportation sales tax revenue was recycled in the new Plan B.

Earlier, bills to increase taxes on hotel rooms, utilities and residential and business properties were deemed unlikely to fly politically. But while one form of tax revenue as a way out of bankruptcy was rejected in the Measure R vote, it is important as a general principle to recognize that the county still has to find a way out of bankruptcy. The supervisors are now in the zone where they have less room than ever to reject various new sources of revenue, like the tippler tax, as politically unpalatable.

The county’s obstinate legislative delegation isn’t much help. Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) didn’t have much to contribute beyond saying that voters made their point “loud and clear.” Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) couldn’t do much better than to say that new taxes would be over the objections of legislators.

The county can ill afford at this juncture to appear to be ruling out anything in the way of a new revenue source that does not, as in the case of Measure M, compromise the county’s prior commitments. While some or all of such proposals face uphill battles, they need to be explored, locally and in Sacramento.