A Tax Hike Here, a Fee Hike There, Agencies Scrape for Funds

There’s that $10-a-pop increase in parking tickets, a $12 tab to spruce up community college facilities, maybe $18 more for parks and a slightly higher bill to cover trash collection equipment.

Not to mention the possible tax hike that may be heading for the November ballot--no idea yet how much--to expand the Police Department. A few bucks here, a few bucks there and Los Angeles residents are likely to soon be shelling out considerably more to fund government spending than they might yet realize.

True, none of these revenue-raising proposals is as yet a done deal. Some of these ideas, already generating plenty of heat, may never come to pass.

Yet everyone from Mayor Richard Riordan to the City Council to the board of a sprawling community college district is pushing ideas to ease strained public coffers. And it is almost certain that at least some of them will make it through the political gauntlet and tug on residents’ wallets.

The Los Angeles Community College District, which stretches across the city and beyond, is planning to levy an assessment on each property owner within its boundaries, of about $12 a year.

But most of the revenue-raisers are embedded in the $4-billion budget proposal that the City Council is scheduled to vote on Tuesday before sending the 1996-97 spending program back to the mayor. Riordan can veto any of the items (he has the final word unless at least 10 of the 15 council members team up to override him).

Riordan, who has cultivated a reputation for municipal tightfistedness, proposed some of these ideas himself--including a $5-a-ticket hike in parking fines and others that the mayor contends will not affect consumers, such as charging utilities companies and others who dig up city streets a fee to cover the street deterioration they escalate.

The mayor really had no choice, said mayoral spokesman Steve Sugerman, given the city’s projected budget deficit and the time it will take for economic recovery and worker productivity improvements to make a substantial difference in the city treasury.

As for the parking tickets, now $20 to $25, “we’re well below what you’d pay in surrounding cities,” Sugerman said.

The council agreed so wholeheartedly with the concept of a parking ticket hike that they doubled the increase to $10. Council members also added some increases of their own, such as a $4 to $6 per-dwelling monthly sanitation equipment charge (scheduled to end after two years).

City officials are considering a proposal to form a citywide assessment district for parks and recreation facilities. About 826,000 parcels would be affected in the campaign to raise $25 million a year for 30 years. The typical single-family home would be assessed about $18 a year.

The city plans to ask voter permission before going ahead with the new assessment plan.

The council this week also moved to put before voters a new assessment or property tax to help cover the rapid expansion of the LAPD. The cost has not been calculated. Riordan, who promised to add 3,000 officers without raising taxes, is considering whether to veto such a November ballot measure.

Councilwoman Rita Walters said that because of the lingering impact of Proposition 13, the city has no choice but to seek funds in other ways for necessary programs.

“The more we can enhance our park facilities, the better off the society is,” she said. “And we can’t get additional police by pulling them out of the air. They have to be paid.

“There has to be an investment in resources and there’s no way to get it otherwise.”

Groups including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. say they will fight the assessment measures with action, including an attempt to place a measure on the November ballot to make it more difficult for local governments to assess charges for special services without first receiving permission from voters.

“We think a police assessment is illegal,” said Jarvis group President Joel Fox. “You can’t make the nexus between property and police services.”

Juanita Tate, executive director of Concerned Citizens of South-Central Los Angeles, said any efforts to assess property owners for police services should be accompanied by assessments for preventive programs.

“There should be more funding for education and youth gang services,” she said. “Let’s assess so a person can be a productive citizen and we can use the human capital as a resource for our community.”