Members of the Amador Regional Planning Committee discussed four potential revenue-sharing proposals for the county and its incorporated cities Thursday night in Ione.

Photo by: Kelly Enos

Four potential scenarios that could benefit the county were discussed during a "sharing the pain and the gain" presentation at the Amador Regional Planning Committee meeting Thursday night.

Such a proposal would involve pooling revenues among the five incorporated cities and county, and having a more unified approach to future growth.

"Such a program would totally remove the issue of where the growth occurs," said Sutter Creek Mayor Tim Murphy, who introduced the presentation. "We are all impacted by growth and everyone would gain by this."

The incremental sales tax sharing could potentially apply to big box developments, car dealerships and potentially other businesses that move to other jurisdictions. According to Murphy, the jurisdiction losing the business would continue to receive the base sales tax, or a percentage of that, in a decreasing annual payment. In turn, the jurisdiction gaining the business would retain all revenues above the base payment due to expanded business.

"There is nothing preventing us from expanding this to other businesses," Murphy said.

Plymouth Councilman Greg Baldwin favored the idea of a revenue-sharing proposal that is based upon each jurisdiction's population. The county and incorporated areas could all benefit from growth, he said. "No developer would be able to pit anyone against anyone," Baldwin added. "It would be fair all across the board."

This was the first regional planning committee meeting a representative from Plymouth attended. City council members were concerned the group could have too much say in other jurisdictions' affairs.

The countywide enterprise districts outline included the combined pool of all sales, transient occupancy tax and property tax revenues that would then be divided among the districts according to a formula for use such as streets, parks and event staff. District 3 Supervisor Ted Novelli said the plan was, in essence, a good one, but was concerned about county-run departments being funded equally. "We would have to know how a program like this would affect departments that are under county jurisdiction because the county has a larger portion," he said.

District 4 Supervisor Louis Boitano suggested doing a fiscal analysis so each jurisdiction would know what it would receive up front for the impacts of new developments, like traffic.

Jackson Councilwoman Connie Gonsalves said such a regionwide proposal could help the city with regard to a proposed Home Depot development. "Maybe if a plan like this were in place, they may find a more appealing location within the county, since all revenue would be split," she said.

The shared services aspect of the outline is designed to efficiently provide law enforcement, fire and public works services between adjacent jurisdictions rather than assuming responsibility based upon boundaries. The cities of Ione and Sutter Creek have already been sharing a street sweeper that sometimes leads to problems when needed by both cities.

"If we need it, we go get it but can't keep it very long," said Ione City Manager Kim Kerr. "Each entity would need to set a rate to cover maintenance, operators and insurance."

Gonsalves agreed with this and said a lot of planning would have to go into getting "something like this" off the ground.

"I'm not saying it wouldn't work," she said, "we just need to study first how it's done."

The fourth potential scenario focused on new projects and property tax formulas related to annexations into the county. If the county's focus is residential growth, this would split the property tax between the cities and the county on a project to project basis. Murphy felt this scenario was preferred "in lieu of chasing sales tax dollars."

"Amador County has several very successful examples of cooperative agreements with the cities, including (memorandums of understanding) and (joint power authorities) addressing recreation, recycling, traffic impact fees and air pollution," he said. "There is no reason we cannot build on our historic spirit of cooperation between the county and the cities."

No decisions were reached during the meeting, but it was an opportunity to formally discuss issues Murphy said had "been kicking around" long enough without a forum. "I can see the county and the cities working something out," he added.