Battling Ballot Taxes

When we look at our Sonoma County ballot for the Nov. 8 election with the many individual tax increases we wonder why some items are missing. County leaders want us to raise our taxes for parks, libraries and tourist activities to upkeep “the luxury of living in a world class destination.”
All that may be fine, but what about fixing our roads and tackling the runaway pension debt and fiasco? We thought we delivered a loud and clear message last year when we said “hell no” to a similar general sales tax increase.
So look here. What do voters get after trouncing Measure A last June by a 67 percent vote margin? We get not one, but three more requests to raise taxes on ourselves. And none of these measures include pension reform or anything but “more, more, more” county government spending.
We think our current Board of Supervisors is taking advantage (once again) of the good graces of us taxpayers. Of course we will support local parks and our treasured libraries. That’s what their pre-election pollsters tell them after they test our squealing limit.
Each ballot measure is only asking for a small fraction of a percentage to be added to our daily sales transactions. Who can’t afford one-eighth of a cent added to his next purchase to maybe restore more local library hours? Won’t we be proud to add one-half of one percent to our bill to contribute another $9.5 million a year for our county parks?
We will be voting yes for both Measure J (county parks) and for Measure Y (libraries.) And, we will vote yes to increase the county’s Transient Occupancy Tax (Measure L) because  we don’t have to pay for it; the tourists do.
But we also warn other voters that they might not want to feel as generous. All these recent and new sales tax increases mean the average tax charge on a receipt is almost 10 percent. For some households, 10 cents added to every dollar can mean the difference to how many groceries can be bought.
We all live on household budgets, across almost all income levels. So why can’t our county government do the same?
Last year the Sonoma County Independent Advisory Committee on Pension Matters reported that runaway pension debt had “robbed” the county’s general fund of $269 million in recent years that could have been spent on road repairs, park maintenance or library services.
Before the supervisors put Measures K, L and Y on our ballot did they first try to fix their pension overruns? “The pension problem is not  yet close to being solved,” the independent pension committee said. “The risk of future cost surprises to the taxpayers and the community remains large,” they also reported.
For instance, Measure L would increase the TOT tax by three percent or $4 million annually. But under current county funding mandates, 75 percent of that new money would go directly into new tourist promotions and not for offsetting impacts on our roads, parks or general costs as “tourist hosts.” This funding formula should be changed.
As we said we want to support our great local parks system and local library services, but we insist on setting an ironclad demand. And this applies to all local governments including cities, schools, fire districts and others.
Don’t put any new tax increases on our future ballots before you adequately address pension reform and other unfunded debts that keep robbing our general funds, road repairs and deferred maintenance project list.
A 10 cent sales tax on every dollar purchase is the limit. We all sacrificed during the recent Great Recession, but times are better now. Property values and business taxes have never been higher.
As taxpayers all we ask is to be just as happy as the tax collector, no more and no less.
— Rollie Atkinson