City Government

City Lowers Size Of State Tax Bite

LA MESA -- City of La Mesa finance officials spent much of the last 48 hours in continual negotiations with state officials trying to clarify exactly how much money the state is owed from local tax coffers.

David Witt, La Mesa's city manager, said those negotiations led the city to recalculate the massive payment the state was claiming as the result in shifts in state laws governing local redevelopment districts.

"We now believe the payment to the state is over $900,000, not the $1.9 million we originally estimated,'' Witt said Thursday evening. "It's been non-stop the last couple days, but I think we have come to a better place.''

Witt said the deviation was due in part to determining at what point these locally collected taxes needed to be handed over to the state. The state's demand letter, which arrived without warning last Friday, sent municipalities throughout the state into frantic work to determine how big a check to write to the state.

Witt said the nearly $1-million has been turned over to the state and negotations will continue to make sure the calculation was correct.

"It is still a big bite out of our reserves,'' Witt said. "It just isn't as big as we first thought. We'll hope this is where it ends up.''