King Trial Bill Totals $223,491 for County : Simi Valley: L.A. officials say the money will be reimbursed. But they don’t expect to pay the city for its post-verdict costs.

Ventura County spent $223,491 to provide police protection and other services for the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney G. King, officials said Thursday.

Los Angeles County officials repeated their assurances that they will reimburse Ventura County for its costs in the trial, which was moved to Simi Valley because of pretrial publicity in Los Angeles.

But they said they probably will not reimburse Simi Valley the $129,000 that city officials say was spent on increased police services in the weeks after the verdict.

The biggest chunk of Ventura County’s costs was $125,500 spent on sheriff’s deputies assigned to the trial, said Vince Ordonez Jr., assistant court executive officer of the Ventura County Municipal and Superior courts.

The county’s other costs includes charges for installing extra telephone lines in the East County Courthouse, hiring a private security firm to patrol the building around-the-clock during the trial, and improving the courthouse’s alarm system.

“We really went out of our way for them,” Ordonez said. And “we were assured all of our costs would be covered.”

Ventura County auditors are reviewing the county’s list of charges and will send a bill to Los Angeles County within a few weeks, Barbara Lopez, chief deputy auditor, said.

Simi Valley officials said the city’s expenses began when the trial ended April 29 with not-guilty verdicts on all but one of the charges.

The city paid police officers 2,375 hours of overtime for increased protection during the Los Angeles unrest that followed the verdicts, and for patrolling several demonstrations afterward.

Simi Valley officials are considering billing Los Angeles County for some of the police costs.

“We are looking for whether we can submit the bill as trial-related costs,” Mayor Greg Stratton said.

But Los Angeles County officials said they probably will not pay any money to the city.

Unlike Ventura County’s arrangement with Los Angeles officials, Simi Valley received no prior assurances that Los Angeles County would reimburse the city for trial-related costs.

In change-of-venue cases such as the King beating trial, state law requires that the county where the trial was held be reimbursed for court-related costs by the county where the case originated.

But state law does not provide a mechanism for a county to repay a city in change-of-venue situations, said Clemon Brown, a financial management analyst for the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Ventura County Supervisor Vicky Howard said she believes that Simi Valley officials should push for reimbursement, saying Los Angeles County officials could find some way to make payment.

But another Ventura County official said he saw no chance that Simi Valley would be reimbursed because its costs were not directly related to the trial.

“They have about as much chance of collecting as I have of flying from one building to another,” said the official, who asked for anonymity.

Stratton said the city may also seek reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because the increased police services in Simi Valley were related to the riots in Los Angeles.

Also, the city may ask Los Angeles to give some of its federal riot aid to Simi Valley.

Simi Valley’s tally of $129,000 in trial-related police costs does not include the overtime paid to officers who patrolled the recent rally by white supremacist Richard Barrett in support of the King case verdicts, officials said.