Prop. 218 May Cost Local Cities Millions in Revenue

Ventura County cities could lose millions of dollars that they count on to pay for everything from street lighting to park maintenance as a result of a statewide tax-cutting measure approved by voters last week, officials said.

The passage of Proposition 218 will also force the county to scrap its plan to establish a special assessment district to help rescue the county’s financially troubled library system.

“It’s dead,” said Supervisor Frank Schillo, who did not support the library tax proposal.

Although the county could still call a special election to consider a library tax, Schillo said it should explore other financing options first. A special election would cost the county an estimated $235,000.

Meanwhile, officials around the county were scrambling last week to determine the potential impact of Proposition 218 on their individual cities, many of which have levied special assessments on property owners to pay for various maintenance services.

A major provision of Proposition 218 requires voter approval of those assessments by July 1, 1997, or else the taxes will be invalidated, said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., chief sponsor of the initiative.

The following is a list of some local assessments that could be directly affected:

* Thousand Oaks’ street lighting and landscaping districts, which collect about $2.3 million annually.

* Moorpark’s lighting and landscaping district, as well as a separate park maintenance district, which combined collect about $900,000.

* Ventura’s street lighting maintenance districts, which collect about $850,000.

* Simi Valley’s landscape maintenance districts, which collect about $670,000.

* Ojai’s street lighting and downtown maintenance districts, which together collect about $130,000.

* Camarillo’s landscape maintenance assessment districts, which collect about $88,000.

Information about assessment districts in Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Fillmore and Santa Paula was not immediately available.

For cities to possibly lose revenues from existing assessments would put a major strain on municipalities struggling to get by, officials said.

“For us, it would be a big impact,” said Moorpark City Manager Steve Kueny. “We have very little flexibility in our general fund reserve. We pretty much spend all of our money every year.”

Another Proposition 218 provision that has county officials concerned is one that would prevent the county from increasing existing fees to pay for future flood control projects.

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The initiative does not take into consideration properties that are rezoned from agricultural to residential use, said county Public Works Director Art Goulet. That is especially troubling, he said, because additional development places more demands on the county flood control system, which must be upgraded to keep pace with growth.

“This is a very serious problem as we see it,” Goulet said. “These assessments are the linchpin of our maintenance programs, which are necessary to comply with requirements of the federal Clean Water Act. If we fail, then we are subject to stiff fines.”

Goulet said that the initiative would also prevent the county from imposing emergency fees to pay for cleanup operations in times of massive flooding, which was the case in the La Conchita landslide last year.

“How do we react to emergencies?” Goulet asked. “It really ties the hands of the county for those things that come up that no one has planned for.”

Another Proposition 218 provision requires voters to approve any new taxes and to ratify those imposed since January 1995. Such voting must be done by November 1998.

This provision prompted two local cities, which had recently imposed new taxes, to take their case to the voters in Tuesday’s election. Voter response was mixed.

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In Port Hueneme, residents voted to continue an existing 4% utility tax used to subsidize the local Police Department and to pay for other services. Such general taxes require a majority vote for passage.

But in Oxnard, voters failed to ratify a 3.5% utility tax--adopted, but never imposed, by the council--that was to be used exclusively for police and fire services. Such special taxes require approval of two-thirds of the votes cast.

Proposition 218 could also end up costing local school districts money. One of the provisions requires schools with properties located within assessment districts to pay their fair share of taxes.

County Supt. of Schools Charles Weis said there are school properties that would be affected by that provision, but that his office has yet to do an inventory of those properties or to determine the exact financial liability. Weis said he believes that this is one part of the initiative that will face an immediate legal challenge.

“To me, it doesn’t make good sense,” he said. “If you take money out of the classroom to pay for this, then you’re going to have to find other revenue to replace it. It’s like moving money from one shell to another.”

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Indeed, city and school officials said there are so many questions about Proposition 218 that the exact fallout may not be known for months, or even years, if it is challenged in court, as many expect.

“There are more questions here than there are answers,” said Don Nelson, director of Thousand Oaks’ Public Works Department. “Every lawyer I’ve talked to has a different interpretation of what Prop. 218 does.”

But even if the new law is challenged in court, supporters said they are confident it will be upheld.

Fox, of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., dismissed the notion that Proposition 218 will make it impossible for local governments to raise needed revenues. He said that a number of cities and school districts throughout the state approved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bond measures in last week’s election.

In fact, voters in the Oxnard Union High School District, which covers Oxnard and Camarillo, approved a $57-million school bond initiative that required a two-thirds majority vote.

By approving Proposition 218, voters have simply said that they want to participate in the decision-making process when it comes to assessments and other local taxes, Fox said.

“The fact of the matter is we’re not shutting off the spigot for local government,” he said. “I agree that this may make it harder to impose new taxes, but maybe local officials need to work harder to convince voters that they need the money.”