“Removal of the surcharge is good news for our customers,” Osborne said. “But another state grab for EID’s local property tax revenue is in the works. The Legislative Analyst’s Office wants the state to transfer responsibility for a state felon parolee program to the counties. To pay for the transfer, the state would take property tax revenue that goes to local water districts and give it to the counties. For EID, this would mean the loss of half of our tax revenue every year to pay for a state responsibility that has no connection to the services we provide. To make matters worse, the proposed shift of revenues would be permanent.”
El Dorado Irrigation District (EID) will remove a 4.3-percent surcharge from its water customers’ bills starting next month. The surcharge was adopted three years ago when the state took $10.4 million of the District’s property tax revenue over a two-year period to help balance the state budget. The average two-month surcharge—noted on bills as WC STATE DEFICIT WTR 2—was $2.26 for residential water customers, $4.14 for agricultural water customers, and $5.38 for commercial and industrial water customers.
“We approved the charge in 2005 only after cutting our operating budget by more than $1 million,” said EID Board President George Osborne. “And we said at the time that we would lift the charge once the revenues were recovered. We’re doing just that, starting with the bills that go out in April of this year.”
The surcharge was a result of the state’s decision in 2004 to transfer $1.3 billion in local property tax revenue to the state coffers over the next two years. The state chose to exempt fire, police, hospital, library, transit, and mosquito and vector control districts from its decision. Therefore, enterprise districts like EID lost the most revenue.
“We encourage our customers to let their state legislators know that they are tired of the state trying to balance its budget on the backs of local taxpayers,” Osborne emphasized. “Every time this happens, taxpayers see fewer of their dollars spent close to home while they face higher bills for essential services like water. It’s a double hit for them.”
