Panel OKs Measure to Give Counties % More of Sales Tax

SACRAMENTO —  California’s counties jumped into the increasingly crowded fight for scarce state budget dollars Wednesday, winning Senate committee approval of legislation that would give them an additional one-quarter of 1% of the sales tax--or about $600 million a year in new revenue.

The sales tax measure, carried by Sen. Quentin Kopp (Ind.-San Francisco) for the County Supervisors Assn. of California, was approved on a 5-0 vote by the Senate Local Government Committee. The measure now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Currently, the state keeps 4 3/4 cents of the 6-cents-per-dollar sales tax, with counties receiving the other 1 cents. The Kopp bill would cut the state’s share to 4 1/2% and boost the counties’ take to 1 1/2%.

Linked to Health, Welfare

As the Kopp bill now stands, there would be no strings attached to the sales tax transfer, thus giving county Boards of Supervisors a free hand in deciding how to spend the money.

However, Kopp said he intends to link the bill to a proposal backed by Gov. George Deukmejian to transfer responsibility for a number of state-run health and welfare programs to counties.

Deukmejian proposed the quarter-cent sales tax transfer in his $39.3-billion budget proposal, but he tied it to a demand that counties take responsibility for the health and welfare programs.

Among the programs are family planning, assistance for genetically handicapped people, special programs for Indians and farm workers, and county welfare services for families and senior citizens.

One of Deukmejian’s motives is to give the state more freedom to operate under the spending limit approved by voters in 1979. By giving the counties $600 million, the state frees up that much to be spent on other programs.

Would Balance Out

As Deukmejian envisions it, the transfer would essentially balance out, with the sales tax revenues providing just a bit more than it would cost to run the programs.

Counties, though, are resisting the second part of the transfer proposal.

County officials believe the cost of the health and welfare programs identified by Deukmejian would rise faster than the one-quarter of 1% share of the sales tax. They are working on their own list of programs for which they would be willing to take financial responsibility

It was clear during Wednesday’s hearing that counties are developing their own constituency within the Capitol for a big budget increase. They will, however, need all the support they can get, for they are stepping up to a crowded table.

Already fighting for a share of the budget pie are educators, who want nearly $1 billion more for public schools; the health care industry, which got both the Assembly and Senate budget committees to restore $300 million in Deukmejian-proposed cuts in the Medi-Cal program; transportation interests, which want funding for hundreds of millions of dollars in new highway projects, and labor unions, which are battling to save $8 million and the state’s Occupational Health and Safety program (Cal/OSHA) from Deukmejian’s budget ax.

In pleading to committee members for the Kopp bill, county supervisors said that costs of providing health, welfare and law enforcement programs are going up 2 1/2 times faster than the revenues they have to pay for them.

Riverside County Supervisor Kay Ceniceros said state requirements that counties provide extensive health and welfare programs are squeezing out law enforcement programs.

Ceniceros said the cost of running the court system, fueled in part by tougher state laws on criminal sentencing, has risen 289% in the last five years. The supervisor said that in 1982, the county could provide one sheriff’s deputy for every 1,800 residents, a ratio that is now up to one deputy for every 4,000 people.

Supervisor Judy Andreen of Fresno County said her county has laid off 300 employees during the last three years. She said that despite ordering a countywide 8% budget cut, the county still faces the possibility of dismissing 150 more employees this year.

“This would be a real salvation for us,” she said of the Kopp bill.