Board Acts to Duck Gann Spending Limit

The Board of Supervisors dismantled the Orange County Harbors, Beaches and Parks District on Tuesday in order to raise the spending limit for the county’s general fund.

The action, taken on a 4-0 vote, with Board Chairman Harriett M. Wieder absent, allows the county’s general fund spending limit to rise by $54 million more than was allowed under spending limits imposed by the successful initiative sponsored by Paul Gann. The law puts caps on expenditures by city, county and other governmental units.

The Harbors, Beaches and Parks District, which had been considered an independent governmental unit under the law, oversees the operation and maintenance of county-owned recreational lands and facilities. Those duties now will be absorbed by the general county government.

Those who had opposed the district’s dissolution had worried that money earmarked for park maintenance and operation would be vulnerable for use for other purposes. However, county officials said the parks money will be protected in a special fund and that nothing will change in the way it is used.

The Gann limit was imposed in 1979 by Proposition 4, known as the Gann Initiative. Under the measure, spending limits for state, county and municipal governments in California are computed under a complex formula.

The county’s revenue has been increasing about 9%, while the Gann limit has been increasing by about 5% annually, county officials have said. In April the county was within $1 million of reaching its $341-million general fund limit for this fiscal year.

In some cases when a governmental unit intends to exceed its Gann limit, taxpayers are called on to approve raising that limit. By dissolving the Harbors, Beaches and Parks District, however, the county was able to avoid that remedy and merely absorb the district’s $54-million Gann limit, which was not reached this year.