Not again! Sacramentans see the need for another sales tax, but they feel tapped out | Opinion
When a Bay Area pollster surveyed Sacramento County voters earlier this year, it found an overwhelming majority who feel that their taxes are already high enough and that they wouldn’t vote for anything more.
This is the same county that in 2004 supported extending a half-cent sales tax to help fund local transit and transportation by a commanding 75%.
What happened?
Likely answer: A lot of new local sales taxes between now and then.
Since 2018, every city in Sacramento County has tried to raise the sales tax by varying amounts for some local need. All but Citrus Heights and Folsom have succeeded. And in Folsom, the City Council recently directed the staff to come back in January with sales tax proposals to consider placing on the November 2024 ballot.
All these tax ideas have resulted in some undeniable signs of voter fatigue.
Measure A, that landmark sales tax effort back in 2004, will only last for 30 years and is now a decade away from ending. So the Greater Sacramento Economic Council hired the Oakland-based EMC Research this summer to poll local voters about transportation. It found that 66% of respondents agreed that their taxes were too high. When asked the same question just eight years ago, 50% of voters felt that way. That’s a significant uptick in fatigue from recent asks for more money.
In 2018, Sacramento voters agreed to increase the city’s sales by a full penny, to 8.75%.
Folsom voters in 2018 resoundingly rejected a half-cent sales tax.
Citrus Heights voters in 2020 narrowly rejected a half-cent sales tax.
Rancho Cordova voters in 2020 approved a half-cent sales tax
Isleton voters in 2021, by 73%, approved a half-cent sales tax for fire services.
And in 2022, both the cities of Galt and Elk Grove raised their sales taxes by a full percent.
The only local city that hasn’t tried to raise the sales tax is the city that isn’t.
Sacramento’s vast “Uncity,” the unincorporated areas that are managed by the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, is the biggest municipal area of them all, with a population exceeding 600,000.
It’s telling that this assemblage of disconnected communities has never had a real chance to invest in its future, like the real cities: As an Uncity, it does not have traditional municipal leadership. On the other hand, if you want to shop for the lowest local sales tax to buy that television, the unincorporated area of Carmichael is a rock-bottom 7.75%. Galt, however, is on the high end, at 9.25%.
On top of all these city sales tax pitches, different interests have tried to increase the Measure A transit/transportation sales tax by a half-cent over the last eight years. And both have failed. And if this latest survey is any indication, 55% of respondents are ready to turn it down again after hearing a list of arguments for and against.
Is the sales tax a funding tool that has been nearly exhausted in Sacramento County?
Outgoing Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg certainly hopes not. In one of his final big acts on the regional stage, he is floating the laudable idea of a sales tax to reshape how the region grows by focusing more on affordable housing near transit on not traditional sprawl developments that require massive new road systems.
Two developments show a glimmer of hope that a future financial window may open. The EMC survey found, for example, that 74% of voters see a need for additional funding for transportation. And on the November ballot, voters statewide will get to decide whether to reduce the passage threshold for local transportation sales tax measures from two-thirds to 55%. The measure was placed on the ballot by the California Legislature.
Lowering the approval threshold is only a partial antidote to voter’s understandable wariness to pay more. Any future public investments need a vision of a better future far beyond the patching of a pothole, a vision that the public can buy into. Otherwise, the voters’ collective wallet will remain closed.
This story was originally published November 28, 2023 at 5:00 AM.