Part of a common site for Neighborhood Councils and Homeowners groups of the San Fernando Valley and information concerning the Valley issues Information about the November 5, 2002 election

LOS ANGELES IN CONTEXT: A Comparative Analysis of Current and Proposed Cities in Los Angeles County

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Executive Summary
Section 1: State Subventions
Section 2: Federal Subventions
Section 3: Sales and Use Taxes
Section 4: Redevelopment
Section 5: Police

Preface

This report was underwritten, in part, by the San Fernando Valley Civic Foundation. It is one in an ongoing series of analyses of important public policy issues in Southern California by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government.

As always, the managers of the Rose Institute, Dr. Ralph Rossum, Director, Dr. Florence Adams, Associate Director and Ms. Marionette Sison, Executive Assistant, were supportive of our efforts. We also wish to acknowledge superb work done by Rose Institute Staff members Doug Johnson, Richard Tradewell and Joy Nakayama.

The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Steven B. Frates Bradford L. Angle Melinda B. Baker

Jill A. Carlson Mark A. Henson Brian W. Rayburn Ian S. Rudge Claremont, California September, 2002

Introduction

The citizens of the City of Los Angeles will make a momentous decision about the future of the City on November 5, 2002. For the first time, in California certainly, two proposals (one regarding the proposed City of Hollywood, the other the proposed city in the San Fernando Valley) to recast a major city into three new, separate cities will be decided by the voters of Los Angeles. This proposal has generated substantial controversy, as might be expected. Fortunately, it has also resulted in detailed and sophisticated study of the issue, most notably by the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) of Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County LAFCO, like other LAFCOs in other counties throughout California, is the government entity charged by the State Legislature to review the merits of municipal reconfigurations in California. Up until this time, LAFCOs in California have primarily been involved in reviewing municipal annexations of surrounding unincorporated areas as cities throughout the State have grown in geographic area and population.

The Los Angeles County LAFCO has done a superb job of carefully examining the fiscal implications of the proposal to split the City of Los Angeles into three new communities. To briefly summarize, LAFCO's exhaustive analysis revealed that the proposed City of Hollywood, the proposed city in the San Fernando Valley, and the remaining parts of the City of Los Angeles are fiscally viable as separate cities. The LAFCO reports provide all interested parties with a detailed review of each proposed municipal entity. This report is not intended to resurvey the ground that LAFCO has covered. Rather, it is intended to put the fiscal characteristics of the existing City of Los Angeles, the proposed City of Hollywood, the proposed city in the San Fernando Valley, and the proposed residual City of Los Angeles in a broader context. To this end, this report provides detailed comparative data about key elements of municipal finance that are central to policy decisions in any California city.

By providing comprehensive and detailed comparative information about State financial aid to municipalities, federal financial aid to municipalities, sales tax revenues, and redevelopment finances this report allows all interested parties to better judge the relative fiscal performance of the existing City of Los Angeles and to put that performance and the fiscal prospects of the three new proposed cities in better context. In addition, Section 5 of this report looks at expenditure patterns for police services within the City of Los Angeles because the police function is perhaps the most important and sensitive one overseen by local officials in any municipality. This examination of police expenditures is possible because the LAPD provides detailed, comprehensive data on this subject. To index

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