COUNTY TO COLLECT $55 MILLION DESPITE QUESTIONS ON LEGALITY.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Cash-strapped Los Angeles County will collect $55 million in taxes from theme park visitors, landfill operators, utility users and others this year even though officials likely won't spend a dime of it because of legal questions.

Members of the Board of Supervisors concede that they probably will need to put the taxes to a vote. But they haven't been able to decide whether the vote should be countywide or just in the unincorporated areas where the taxes are levied.

``We're going to have a vote of the people at some point,'' said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. ``But which people? Before we go spend $1.5 million (on an election), let's be sure this is what the law requires. Let's do it right the first time.''

But the inaction has angered Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who is pushing his colleagues to put a measure authorizing the taxes on the Nov. 5 ballot.

``The money should be spent - and if it's not to be used, it shouldn't be collected,'' Antonovich said. ``The county must not be the banker to have a savings account of taxpayers' dollars.''

Taxpayer advocate groups also want the supervisors to put the issue on the ballot.

``Keeping the money and not spending it doesn't make any sense for the government and doesn't make any sense for the taxpayer,'' said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

``We just want the cities and counties to do the right thing,'' Fox said. ``The way to settle this is to go back to the people whose money it is and say, `Shall we keep it?' ''

The questions arose last fall when the state Supreme Court threw out a transit agency's tax measure in Santa Clara County. The court said a public vote was required as part of Proposition 62, a 1986 Jarvis initiative that requires public votes on general tax measures.

County officials say the court's opinion, known as the Guardino decision, put a cloud over a variety of taxes imposed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in unincorporated areas since 1986.

They include a 2 percent tax on amusement park admissions, a 14 percent tax on hotel room rentals, a 15 percent tax on landfill gross receipts, a 25-cent charge per ton of waste deposited in landfills, and a 5 percent utility-user tax on electricity, natural gas and phones.

In all, those taxes annually generate $55 million, with $6 million imposed for the first time just last year. Only a portion of the hotel bed tax was charged before Prop. 62 took effect, and none of that tax has been approved by voters, so county legal analysts said all five measures are vulnerable to a court challenge.

Yaroslavsky, however, believes it may be premature to put the measures to a vote. He said the Legislature may yet pass Senate Bill 1590, which would allow taxes passed after 1986, but before the Guardino decision, to remain in force without a retroactive vote.

County officials also said there is a question about who should vote in any tax election. The state legislative counsel says the vote should be countywide, while the Los Angeles County Counsel's Office and the Jarvis group say that only those who pay the taxes in unincorporated areas are required to vote.

If the county ultimately holds a vote and voters reject the taxes, the money won't be refunded to taxpayers. Under Prop. 62, an equivalent amount of property taxes collected by the county would be distributed to other local governments, according to an analysis by the County Counsel's Office.

But because so many cities and special districts also may be affected by Prop. 62 repayments under the Guardino decision, it would be impossible to say whether the county would lose the entire amount, the county counsel says.

The city of Los Angeles so far is unaffected by the Guardino decision because it is a home-rule city whose charter allows the imposition of such taxes, Fox said. But ongoing court cases may also bring home-rule cities under the decision.