Plan to Tap Cities Raises Loud Protest

Local California officials from Los Angeles and elsewhere denounced a proposal on Friday that they said threatened to take more than $1 billion a year from cities and counties in order to prop up the state’s failing finances.

Sparked by reports from their lobbyists in Sacramento that Democratic and Republican leaders were discussing a plan to permanently tap property taxes, local officials inundated the Legislature with pleas to protect funding for police, fire and health services.

During a daylong swing through Los Angeles on Friday, Gov. Gray Davis joined with those officials in opposing the proposal to extract an additional $1 billion from local governments. Davis also reiterated his concern that Republican opposition to new taxes will force further cuts in programs, including education. Republicans counter that Davis and Democrats overspent the budget during flush years and now refuse to make the cuts needed to balance it during tough times.

By day’s end, so many forces had lined up against the raid on local government that legislative leaders were denying any connection to the proposal, which first surfaced during a Republican Assembly caucus meeting. At that meeting, Assembly Minority Leader Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) told colleagues that Republicans in the Senate were considering the idea, according to a staff member of an Assembly member who attended the meeting.

On Friday, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) said that he too had heard that Republicans were debating a local tax encroachment “in perpetuity,” but that he was firmly against it.

Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) denied that he was behind the idea, and said no deal had been struck regarding taking more money from local governments.

“There is no agreement on local government in the Senate that I am aware of,” Brulte said.

The rapid rise and fall of the local government proposal underscored the difficulty of closing the state’s $38-billion budget gap, at a time when the two parties are badly divided and opposition can mount to proposed cuts even before they are formally introduced.

In this case, the outrage came most furiously from local leaders, especially those in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn released a letter signed by the mayors of California’s 10 biggest cities warning that the proposal would “have grave consequences on public safety, housing and infrastructure development, and community sustainability in urban centers and neighborhoods.”

The mayor’s office said Hahn planned to fly to Sacramento next week to lobby against the proposal.

“We need to make the case ... that the state should not balance the budgets on the backs of local governments, because it is a straight-line equation that if you cut too deep, you will be pulling police officers and firefighters off the street,” said L.A. Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday passed an emergency motion opposing the proposed cuts, and several council members said that if the cuts went through, hiring of police officers might be halted, including replacing officers who retire or leave the department.

City financial analysts warned that Los Angeles could lose about $75 million this year, and about $40 million in years to come.

“It’s a very, very draconian amount,” said Ron Deaton, the city’s chief legislative analyst. “It ain’t going to be pretty.” If the reductions went through, Deaton said, he would urge a hard hiring freeze citywide and cuts in every department.

Bolstered by warnings such as those, 12 Assembly Republicans signed a letter to Cox and Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine), the lead Republican on the Assembly Budget Committee, stating their opposition.

” ... Cuts of the magnitude under discussion for local governments are unacceptable and must be of a one-time, not permanent, nature,” the letter said. “Balancing the budget on the backs of local governments yet again is unreasonable at best.”

One of those who signed the letter, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange), said he didn’t know firsthand of the proposal, but that he received a report “that the negotiations were moving in a direction to make cuts to local government.”

Even if the report was inaccurate, “To me it’s a no harm, no foul for a group of Republicans to reiterate our stance on local government.”

Dwight Stenbakken, legislative director for the League of California Cities, said Friday that he was gratified by the support from Assembly members and local officials. But he was not yet prepared to declare victory.

“We’ve got a long ways to go,” Stenbakken said. “It could get worse from here.”

The flap over the local government proposal came with many legislators already out of Sacramento for the weekend. Their departure ended any chances of the Legislature passing a budget by the state constitutional deadline of midnight Sunday, but Davis continued to express optimism that a budget could be approved by July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.

“We’ve actually made a lot of progress over the last several weeks,” the governor said.

Davis told about 500 middle school students assembled for a technology conference produced by talk show host Tavis Smiley at the Los Angeles Convention Center that the number of computers in classrooms had nearly doubled during his administration. He also said that the state now provides more college scholarships to low-income students and that test scores have gone up.

“You may have heard we have a little budget problem up in Sacramento,” Davis said as the students whispered and fidgeted. “I’m fighting to keep money in education to help you achieve your dreams.”

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Times staff writers Jessica Garrison and Matea Gold contributed to this report.