San Diego voters reject tax hikes – Latest News
The metropolis and the county of San Diego have giant finances deficits, introduced on by years of spending past their means — and now officers at each entities are on the lookout for methods to raise taxes.
Residents have had enough.
We perceive that tax {dollars} fund streets and highways; colleges and libraries; and police and firefighters.
Aerial view of downtown San Diego with a marina full of boats within the foreground and a cityscape with many high-rise buildings. Getty Images
Nonetheless, it’s fairly affordable for us to anticipate that our tax {dollars} are spent properly, and that authorities will cut pointless spending earlier than asking us for more money.
Sadly, right here in San Diego the town has employed more than 1,000 new workers during the last 5 years, many of them center managers who don’t carry out core companies.
The metropolis additionally doled out 23 % raises to metropolis employees during the pandemic, utilizing one-time federal aid money, regardless of not having the money to pay for these raises after these federal funds have been gone.
The metropolis’s plan to pay for these raises was to cross a gross sales tax increase in 2024, however voters had a completely different thought. San Diego’s Measure E gross sales tax increase failed, regardless of a number of different comparable tax measures in cities all through the county profitable voter approval.
The cause? I consider voters trusted the leaders of these different cities to be accountable stewards of the new tax {dollars}, and that the problems these voters cared about most — primarily infrastructure and public security — have been definitely worth the extra investment.
San Diego voters didn’t trust City Hall to spend the new gross sales tax money properly, as a result of they didn’t consider metropolis officers have been properly spending the money they already had.
Aerial view of downtown San Francisco, together with the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood, Highway 101, the San Francisco Bay, the Mission Bay neighborhood, and Potrero Hill. Getty Images
Fast-forward to the current day. City leaders are reportedly planning to put one other gross sales tax increase on the poll this yr. The query is whether or not voters will trust them this time more than they did two years in the past. Early indications are that we’ll not.
So far, metropolis officers have tried to plug finances holes with payment will increase, together with two which have confirmed extraordinarily unpopular with San Diegans.
The first is a trash assortment payment approved in 2022. Voters have been advised it could be roughly $23 to $29 monthly. However, it’s going to quickly be almost double that quantity.
The second payment increase is a pay-to-park system in Balboa Park, the town’s century-old crown jewel.
Parking has been free in Balboa Park for the reason that day it opened in 1915. Residents and vacationers alike flock to the park to benefit from the dozens of museums and cultural establishments, and it has been a comparatively low-cost hub of recreation and studying for over a century.
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This yr, metropolis officers determined to implement a convoluted pay-for-parking system on the park that costs residents and nonresidents completely different charges.
Even worse, many residents (together with this one) have discovered that the online resident allow processing portal does a great job of charging your credit card for the allow payment, however a awful job of really issuing the allow.
Under intense strain from residents, metropolis officers lastly rolled out a new plan the place some of the much less fascinating parking heaps will probably be free to residents, whereas heaps nearer to the points of interest will nonetheless require fee.
That is, if San Diegans can really get a resident allow from the town. If not, they’ll pay the identical price as out-of-towners.
When new charges are applied whereas a whole bunch of new center management positions are left untouched, voters have each proper to be skeptical of metropolis officers asking for more money.
For its half, the county of San Diego can be reportedly eyeing its own tax measures this yr, together with a potential gross sales tax increase, a property switch tax hike, and a brand-new payroll tax.
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To be clear, all these measures definitely gained’t be on the identical poll, and a few could by no means qualify.
However, when officers at any stage of authorities ask for tax will increase earlier than demonstrating that they’re properly spending the money with which they’ve already been entrusted, they shouldn’t be shocked when voters decline the invitation.
We voters are affordable people who will assist tax measures that go towards particular functions we worth — if the need, and monetary self-discipline, might be demonstrated.
Our leaders haven’t met that primary duty.
Mark Kersey is a former two-term San Diego metropolis councilman and is the present president & CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.
