Supervisors to Cut Funds for Districts : Action Revives Talk of Incorporation of South County Areas

When a street needs sweeping in Mission Viejo or the grass at a baseball field in Laguna Niguel needs trimming, Buena Park taxpayers share in the costs of those jobs, even though they may never drive that street or use the field.

And that shouldn’t be the case, the Orange County Board of Supervisors declared Wednesday. Services that solely and directly benefit one community should be the responsibility of the people who live there, the supervisors said.

To that end, the supervisors said, they do not intend to provide augmentation funds next fiscal year to certain special districts to help them offset budget deficits, as has happened in the past.

The decision by the supervisors has revived the often-discussed, but recently dormant, prospect that such south county communities as Mission Viejo may incorporate as cities in order to finance the services they regard as essential.

Services to Communities

At the heart of the matter are the special districts known as county service areas or CSAs--14 administrative and geographic units through which the county finances and pays for services to individual communities in the unincorporated areas. Those services may vary from community to community, but for the most part they include development and maintenance of local parks and recreation programs, street sweeping, and maintenance of roadside slopes and medians.

Costs can differ from CSA to CSA because, according to Bob Hamilton of the county Environmental Management Agency, “Mission Viejo is a very hilly area and has a lot of slopes, while Rossmoor-Leisure World, which is in the flat part of the county, doesn’t have any.”

What all of the CSAs have had in common since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which reduced property tax revenues by 50%, is budget deficits. The CSAs had derived 100% of their revenues from property taxes, and Proposition 13 cut those in half.

Pool of Tax Revenues

To make up for those losses, the state Legislature created the special district augmentation fund, a pool of property tax revenues from which the districts make up the difference between their budgets and what they receive in property tax revenues.

The problem in recent years, Hamilton said, is that funding requests by special districts have exceeded the amount available in the augmentation fund. In the view of the Environmental Management Agency, he said, priority should be given to programs that provide countywide services--flood control, libraries, harbors, beaches and parks, for example--rather than to the CSAs, which deal with the wants or needs of an individual community.

That was the thrust of the board’s action Wednesday as it approved a series of recommendations offered by a task force charged with studying the plight of the special districts.

The board’s action will, however, have little immediate impact on the districts. Reduced labor costs mean that most of them are not expected to incur deficits during fiscal year 1985-86.

But the message for the future is clear.

“I think, without question, we’re moving into a whole new era of financing,” Supervisor Bruce Nestande said during Wednesday’s board meeting. “Obviously, this is going to dramatically affect the south county.”

“One option we discussed,” he said, “and one I support, is to begin some incorporation efforts down there.”

Incorporation, of course, is not the only solution, and the board ordered the Environmental Management Agency to conduct a series of public hearings in the coming months on a variety of alternatives. Those included reducing services so they are in line with present revenues; establishing benefit assessments; consolidating the individual CSAs into one unit, or converting the present CSAs into Community Services Districts that would encourage more ideas from residents about what should be done.

The Environmental Management Agency was ordered to report back to the board in October on the results of those hearings.

Heavy Lobbying

In its original recommendation to the supervisors earlier this month, the special district task force urged that the county adopt a “policy” of not giving the CSAs further allocations from the augmentation fund. However, heavy lobbying by such organizations as the Saddleback Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Mission Viejo Municipal Advisory Council got the board to change that to an “intent.”

“The difference is that once the board adopts a ‘policy,’ things tend to get locked in concrete,” said Kent Hann, president of the Saddleback chamber. “By making it their ‘intent,’ that gives us a little bit more room.

“But they’re being very candid. They’re telling us, ‘It’s all over, folks. You’re not going to get any more money.’ ”

“The whole ball park has changed in the last 30 days,” Hann added. “A month ago, there was zero incentive for incorporation down here, but this may be the straw that pushes it to the forefront.”

However, Hann said, the chamber plans to study all of the possible alternatives before deciding which it will support.

Hann said he doubts that the idea of reducing services is one that would receive much support. “My opinion is that it’s not viable. Nobody’s going to let the beautiful communities we have here just go to pot,” he said.

Norm Murray, vice chairman of the Mission Viejo Advisory Council, told the board Wednesday that the situation was of great concern to his organization.

“We’re aware of the political realities, we’re aware of the funding realities,” he said. “We get the point.”

The Mission Viejo group on Monday voted to establish a task force to study the options, Murray said, adding that “I think you’ve pulled the trigger that is going to get things rolling.”

‘Study, Learn and Listen’

Murray said after the meeting that he does not know if incorporation--as opposed to consolidation of the CSAs or conversion to community service districts--is the answer.

“I’m going to study, learn and listen,” he said.