The Livermore Area Recreation and Park District (LARPD) board believes an interagency tax-sharing agreement has not provided the district with the money it deserves.
Specifically, LARPD Director Phillip Pierpont believes that the LARPD should have received $200 million more over the last 30-plus years of the agreement due to decisions made by Alameda County’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). That money may have gone to the East Bay Regional Park District instead.
Under the tax sharing agreement, user fees, property taxes, and a special local tax are collected by the county and distributed to regional agencies such as the LARPD. LAFCO, an advisory body, makes boundary and jurisdictional decisions that, in the case of parks, determine which parcels are considered to be in which county’s sphere of influence (or SOI). This impacts how funds are allocated.
The dispute came to light at the LARPD’s August 13 meeting, where directors expressed frustration with LAFCO’s apparent refusal to incorporate and address their concerns in a draft report.
LAFCO representatives were not present at the meeting and did not respond to calls from The Independent seeking comment.
LAFCO produces such a report every five years, called a Municipal Service Review (MSR), to understand the availability and performance of government services in its jurisdiction.
The LARPD Board of Directors believes that over the past 30 or more years, which is the period in which LAFCO first entered into an agreement to split property taxes between the two agencies, LARPD may have lost as much as $200 million in revenue that instead went to the East Bay Parks and Recreation District for properties presumably under LARPD’s jurisdiction.
The dispute over the overlapping responsibilities, also known as the spheres of influence of the respective districts, is the basis of the complaint. The draft report states that this issue could lead to a reduction in public accountability and efficiency.
“There may need to be a new tax agreement that better serves them, or a separation mandated to eliminate overlapping borders,” the report said.
However, this does not address the significant deficiency that Livermore Parks Authority sees.
“I have read these documents several times and I find this unacceptable,” Pierpont said. “We are losing money every year when we could be able to better serve our SOI area.”
Attorney Gary Bell, who was hired by the LARPD as a special counsel, explained during the meeting that the panel’s best course of action would be to have Livermore panel members attend the LAFCO meeting scheduled for Sept. 12, when a final version of the report will be released.
“We’ve been revising the MSR over and over with an eye toward the LAFCO meeting next month,” Bell said. “The last time we spoke to LAFCO, they said they would do a second round of revisions and intend to include the changes we suggested or commit to a special report…those things didn’t make it into the draft, but they said they would include those provisions before Sept. 12.”
Bell said those changes included information about the amount of tax revenue for Livermore, which could confuse readers of the report by making it appear as though the LARPD is receiving more money than is actually the case.
David Furst, chairman of the LARPD, said in an interview with The Independent that he was optimistic that the LAFCO board would approve the study.
“We hope that the LAFCO commissioners will tell their staff to do the special study soon, not in two or three years,” Furst said. “I hope they realize the importance of this.”
