Before supervisors think about asking countywide taxpayers to fork over more of their hard-earned money in an attempt to help solve their deficit problems, the officials should examine prospects for a “catch-up tax” that would put the county’s sales tax for unincorporated areas on par with that of Hollister.
County officials for the past few years have faced continued, multimillion-dollar deficits, prompting the idea to either pursue a new special tax district to pay for parks and library services or else examine a sales tax for the general fund. As of last Tuesday’s meeting, they were leaning toward placing a general sales tax on the ballot for 2014 after reading results from another one of those costly consultant’s surveys that tell us how we would think on major political decisions.
It’s a bad idea on several levels, but mostly due to currently inequitable rates among the county’s unincorporated areas, Hollister and San Juan Bautista.
The county doesn’t have an additional tax beyond the 7.5 percent state mark. People pay 8.5 percent in Hollister after voters in November OK’d the 1 percent extension known as Measure E. And San Juan’s sales tax is 8.25 percent.
County supervisors should lead the effort to bring all jurisdictions to an even level – in this case, 8.5 percent – and push forward on a proposal to find out whether voters in unincorporated San Benito County would support the additional 1 percent tax to do so. They should do that before considering a countywide tax – a double-whammy for city residents and businesses – and Hollister voters should keep in mind the lower unincorporated county tax if such a measure comes before them on the ballot in 2014.
The fact remains, city voters, when faced with the potential for a drop-off in critical services, stepped forward and approved the sales tax to fund them. Unincorporated county voters have yet to answer the same question, and now pay a lower sales tax for goods.
Unincorporated San Benito County had around $150 million in taxable sales in the most recent reporting period, meaning the local sales tax, just for those areas, would generate about $1.5 million in additional annual revenue for the county.
It would be an adequate enough boost to the tax base for officials to maintain critical services, while residents and businesses throughout the county would truly share in the pain when they pay sales taxes.
Yet, if those unincorporated county voters show an unwillingness to support the increase, they would get the services that they are willing to fund. They would get abysmal emergency response times and they would have to expect them, as they probably currently do.
