STATE REVENUE GRAB LOOMS $4.4 MILLION OF CITY REVENUE GOING TO CAPITOL.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Lancaster's proposed budget predicts state government will take $4.4 million from city revenues next year to make up California's budget crisis.

California's recent budget crisis has already cost the city and its redevelopment agency $9.5 million, city officials said.

``It means we have already lost the equivalent of over three-fourths of our sheriff's contract, or one new enclosed swimming pool, or six years of street overlays,'' City Manager Jim Gilley said in the budget message to the City Council.

With a total city general fund budget of $48.6 million for the 2004-05 fiscal year, spending is projected to go up 8.2 percent from this year, documents show.

The city's proposed capital budget envisions spending another $57.1 million next year, including $27.2 million for widening and repaving streets, freeway landscaping and other road projects, and $6.8 million on parks projects.

City Council members are expected to vote on the budget Tuesday.

The proposed budget continues funding for eight deputies added this spring for the Lancaster Community Appreciation Project, or LAN-CAP, which concentrates on crimes in neighborhoods with high proportions of rental units; pays for assigning a prosecutor to work with the LAN-CAP deputies, and adds a sheriff's detective to focus on domestic violence cases.

The capital budget contains $6.8 million for parks projects, including creating 15 youth baseball and softball fields at the former Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, continuing work on the proposed Whit Carter Park on Sierra Highway at Avenue H-8 and completing Forrest Hull Park on 30th Street West.

Street project budgets include $2.7 million for acquiring property and creating new parking lots in downtown Lancaster, $2.6 million for widening the intersection of 10th Street West and Avenue K, $2.1 million for landscaping along the Antelope Valley Freeway, and $3.3 million for traffic signals around the city.

The budget contains $15.8 million for water lines and storm drains.

Besides paying for more sheriff's deputies - who work for the city under a contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department - the budget calls for adding four staffers to the planning department to deal with increasing home construction, plus three city maintenance workers.

The council meets Tuesday at City Hall, 44933 Fern Ave., first as the city's redevelopment board at 6 p.m. The council meeting starts at 7 p.m.