Fight for O.C. Tax Funds to Expand

An Orange County supervisor fired a salvo Friday in the political battle brewing with county firefighters over funding.

To compete with the firefighters’ Nov. 8 ballot measure for a bigger share of the county’s public safety money, Supervisor Bill Campbell said he would propose on Tuesday adding three alternative measures, each of which offers less money for the Orange County Fire Authority.

At issue is how the county should divvy up revenue from Proposition 172, a 1993 state measure that established a half-cent-on-the-dollar sales-tax increase for public safety agencies. Orange County will receive about $264 million this fiscal year.

The firefighters’ initiative doesn’t call for a tax increase but would change the current formula so that half of any increase in the proposition’s revenue -- up to 10% of the total -- would go to the fire department.

Firefighters contend that voters supported the initiative because the election occurred in the wake of the Laguna Beach and Malibu fires, and voters believed money would go to firefighters, said Dan Young, vice president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn.

But supervisors allocated 80% of Proposition 172 funds to the Sheriff’s Department and 20% to the district attorney’s office.

Under one of Campbell’s proposals, voters would continue giving supervisors authority to allocate the funds as they see fit. In the second, the county would set aside $10 million under a Homeland Security initiative to buy new fire equipment, including a helicopter. The third alternative denies firefighters any allocation, and gives 5% of the county’s share to the Probation Department to monitor criminals on probation.

Campbell was out of town Friday. But in a prepared statement, he said that he wanted to offer voters some choices, “not just one bad choice,” referring to the firefighters’ initiative.

County firefighters and their board said they were not happy with Campbell’s decision or his statements.

For more than a year, they have unsuccessfully sought to negotiate a settlement with supervisors, said Ken Blake, a director of the Fire Authority.

Blake and firefighter union officials said they took exception to the ease with which Campbell could put an item on the ballot.

By contrast, it took firefighters four months, hundreds of off-duty hours and $300,000 to gather signatures for the initiative and qualify it for the ballot, Young said.

“To have Campbell do this now, with just four days before the deadline for initiatives to get on the ballot, marginalizes the firefighters’ efforts,” Young said.

Supervisor Chris Norby has said he opposes the firefighters’ initiative because the Fire Authority serves less than half the county. Many cities have their own fire departments.

Supervisor Tom Wilson said he wants to hear more arguments but is leaning away from the firefighters’ position, because changing the proposition’s formula would be detrimental to the district attorney’s and sheriff’s budgets.