The Bell City Council Monday will explore if it can legally refund about $3 million in property taxes that were illegally overcharged to property owners over the past three years, an overcharge that helped fund exorbitant salaries for some of the very same elected officials.
State controller John Chiang on Friday announced that $3 million had been raised in illegal tax levies, but said the money cannot be immediately refunded to taxpayers, and instead must be transferred to local schools.
The scandal-torn city's interim city manager, Pedro Carrillo, said he has taken "swift and decisive action to right this wrong and ensure that Bell homeowners see an immediate reduction in property taxes."
Members of BASTA, a reform group backed by city police officers, have asked state legislators to change laws to allow the overcharges to be refunded immediately. Carrillo said Friday that such refunds might be possible without
state action, and said the city council will discuss such an action tonight.
Last week, Chiang directed tax collectors to lower the city's tax rate and said the city council had illegally raised taxes to an improper rate to cover pension costs for city employees higher than allowed by state law.
In a statement Saturday, BASTA demanded that four additional administrators to resign. It targeted Director of Administrative Services Lourdes Garcia, Community Services Director Annette Peretz, General Services Director Eric Eggena and Business Development Coordinator Ricardo Gonzalez.
BASTA stands for the Bell Association to Stop The Abuse, and the acronym means "enough" in Spanish.
