Edhat Staff
The Santa Barbara City Council is considering a sales tax increase as a solution to the city’s growing deficit, currently estimated at $7 million.
The proposed 1/2 percentage point sales tax increase, slated for the November election, aims to generate an additional $15.6 million annually for the city.
The potential tax hike, if approved by voters, would impact consumers, translating to an average 9.25% tax on a $100 purchase, or $9.25.
Currently, Santa Barbara, alongside Goleta, Santa Maria, and San Luis Obispo, shares the 8.75% tax rate, while Ventura stands at 7.75%.
If the sales tax increase is approved by voters in November, it would go into effect on April 1, 2025, impacting the fiscal year ending June 30, 2025.
Last month the City released its sales and hotel tax results for the quarter ending on March 31.
“Year to date, total sales tax revenues are coming in about 5.0% below budget,” the City stated while adding the transient occupancy tax (hotel tax) are estimated to be 4.0% below budget.
Along with the sales tax increase, the city is also evaluating a hotel tax increase and vacancy tax for revenue-generation potential.
Details are expected to be presented during the City Council meeting on June 4.
I will vote no.
The city should do what everyone else does when revenue is low — cut back on expenses.
Look for efficiencies, and cut headcount.
Next time revenue comes in high, save it.
Totally agree. Our tax dollars going into the City are being poorly-managed. No thanks to more taxation. Some folks know what fiscally-conservative means, and some don’t.
Fiscal year 2023 the city paid out $186,000,000 in payroll and benefits. A 7 million dollar deficit is only 4% of payroll.
Now they want the residents to subsidize them. Sales tax hits the poor much harder than the rich.
Just say NO
It’s weird how, when taxes go up, they never seem to stop going up? It doesn’t seem to increase revenue generation; ie business activity? The tax goes up, tax collection increases for a short period, then drops below baseline (prior to tax increase) over time (on an inflation adjusted basis). It’s just all very weird, I thought increasing taxes is supposed to make everything better? Everyone tells me poor people will benefit. But…. The number of bums and low income families, just seem to go up. And fewer jobs, weird?
The solution is definitely to take more money from private citizens and businesses, then give it to the government. You can’t argue with success. Solid stuff.
A city the size of Santa Barbara should not have as many city employees as it does. For starters the city should not have full time city council members. The admistrative state keeps on growing and growing.
True. Working for the City of Santa Barbara is a gravy train with Biscuit wheels. They are hiring too, catch the train while you can.
Are we being served? No, we are being abused. Citizens should vote NO to tax increases anywhere in Santa Barbara. The people and small businesses are being crushed by city and county taxation as well as ineptitude. There is no room for higher taxes.
Inflation is most cruel to the poor. Incremental taxes matter most to them and are only moderately less impactful to what is left of our middle class. Poor budgeting decisions and self dealing in terms of exorbitant salaries have bloated the budget overhead. Note to staff: please do not show us wage and benefit comparables to private industry nor the circular logic of what some affluent enclave is paying their public servants.
We, the people, did not ask for an $11 M underpass nor bike paths through the center of our roads. We do not need hundreds of small social service entities paid for with our taxes. We are not going to solve any problems by passing money through a bloated government entity that clips a massive chunk of the funds that flow by.
Time for ALL departments to start the headcount reduction process; 20% seems a good starting point as we slip into a slowing economy. Please do not parrot the narrative that we are doing well – nationalist propaganda falls on deaf ears after we’ve been through. These government departments bloated themselves during COVID and they are still living off the sugar high. Repetitive poor decisions should not be rewarded. Time to chop, we are not being served, lawsuits are far to regular and poor decisions continue. We are not being served. No taxes, cut the fat.
^ This ^
Sara —
I figured out long ago our city and county government is not nearly as interested in serving ‘the people’ as they are about serving themselves with higher pay, higher pensions/benefits, and less work.
We the people are their means of getting more money into their pockets.
This is more so in Santa Barbara than other areas that I have lived.
No.
Instead:
1) Reduce city headcount. Fire every Dept head and their underlings and replace them with ChatGPT. Pay market rate for city employees. Which in SB is 15-25% lower than comparable roles elsewhere in CA.
2) Sell off city property for cash. No more government or subsidized housing downtown. Grow our middle class, not the low-wage government dependent.
3) Drop all spending on non-essentials – only $ for public safety, utilities, works and debt service.
4) Spend all marketing and development dollars on attracting high paying, highly skilled jobs and companies instead of selling SB as a tourist destination. We need to build and grow our way out of this mess. That only happens with high paying, professional jobs that support a family.
5) Ignore anything and everything the Chamber of Commerce says or wants…
“Replace them with ChatGPT”.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!!!
STEVE PY – what “non-essentials” do you think the City should stop funding? Seems you’re only ok with them spending the bare minimum to keep the lights on and the cops paid.
Have you ever been to Santa Barbara? We’re not just a simple, average town where the locals go to work in a business park, go to Chilis for dinner and drinks and then go to bed, spending weekends in the mall. We’re a thriving, vibrant, beautiful place and that overall characteristic costs some money to keep up with. You’ll NEVER stop SB from being a tourist generation. Go look outside.
Let’s not turn SB into Bakersfield just to save $$. It costs to live in a place like this.
When you are short on money, stop spending – is it necessary to spend millions on the State Street underpass when there is no money?
Sales Tax is a very slippery process that has constantly been growing over time. A few things that voters should consider are:
1) Sales tax is, of course, assessed as a percentage of certain things that consumers purchase. As inflation causes the price of goods to rise, the sales tax revenue increases. This automatic increase in sales tax should be enough to support reasonable budget planning by the politicians. However, they keep asking for more of more with no apparent end in sight.
2) Over the years the sales tax rules have constantly been changed to include more items and services to which sales tax applies. So now we have more of more of more things! How many people remember when gasoline was added to the taxable items list. This initially caused calamity at the gas stations because the sales tax was not included in the price shown at the pump. When they rolled the sales tax into the displayed pump value, I think people eventually forgot about the extra tax. You can read about the sales tax portion of gas purchases at https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/09/04/gas-tax-what-you-actually-pay-on-each-gallon-of-gas/ This is only one example of the goods and services that have become taxable.
3) The total California sales tax rate includes several different components. They are State Sales Tax, County Sales Tax, City Sales Tax and “Special Tax.” The state shares a portion of the tax with the counties and cities but they also allow the cities to assess their own additional tax. This is why the sales tax rate varies with your location within California. You can read all the gory details at https://www.salestaxhandbook.com/california/rates
4) The Santa Barbara City portion of the sales tax we pay is currently 1% and they want to raise it to 1.5%. The people promoting the increase will say “it’s only ½ of a cent!” However, the correct math tells us that they want to increase the Santa Barbara City portion of the sales tax a whopping 50%. (Remember, that they also get a good allocation from the state portion of the sales tax.
5) The last flaw I’ll mention is the increase in revenue that the local politicians claim will be realized. They always just apply a simple formula assuming that the new tax will be paid and buying habits and the economy will not change. Also, they will probably have the new revenue spent before it could take effect.
I’m happy to hear from some fellow fiscally-conservative and sane-minded Edhat commenters on this topic. We cannot keep spending indiscriminately. Lots of very good points above. The liberal spenders that are a lot of SB voters hopefully will think carefully about this, because the City won’t. They’ll just expect more money of ours to do whatever they want with, with zero accountability.
What happened to Santa Barbara is so very Sad. We could blame the bloated City Staff but they are neither the problem nor the solution. The best employees and local entrepreneurs go where they are treated best. SB has catered to the welfare folks for so long and so well that its hard to tell who is on the government dole or on a government salary. People have a right to get rewarded for their efforts. Dealing with homeless on State or having a lack of businesses is not stimulating to the contributing class
JULIESTRANGE – how about you just say what you mean.
The “welfare folks” are running the City? Is that what you’re getting at? Not true at all. Who, specifically, are you talking about?
And please spare us the tears for the “contributing class” (you can also explain that one if you can). EVERYONE benefits from “dealing with the homeless.” You don’t want to see them? Fine, it’s going to cost you. You actually care about them and want them helped? Great! Gonna cost you. Know what will cost nothing? Leaving the mentally ill homeless on the streets to deter tourists and pose problems for locals.
Instead of blaming the poor, chip in and help out.
Makes sense to me, but I’ll just get deleted.
There’s a reason for that, BASIC.
“SB has catered to the welfare folks for so long and so well that its hard to tell who is on the government dole or on a government salary.”
Could you, would you please explain this?
I’m mystified. Do you mean you can’t tell public works employees out on the street with designated trucks and clothing, and clerks behind the counter or desk, from “welfare folks”?
“the government dole” Are you from the UK?
Let Us draw a name from the hat full of city administrators that are not serving voters in my view: Waterfront Director Michael Wiltshire. This position paid him salary, benefits and pension of 1/3 of a million dollars in 2023. Pre-COVID 19, all in, the man was paid 1/4 of a million dollars (2020). According to Zip Recruiter, the 2024 average salary (no other benefits included) is $60,000. Comparable Waterfront Director salary for 2023 was $226,000, it’s higher this year. So about 4X the average.
This Waterfront is some sort of a “special district” that gets “no tax funds” from the City of SB. Where do they get their funds? A: From you, in the form of waterfront “usage fees”: parking, boat launching, Stearns Wharf rents, Cruise Ship fees (did anyone every ask us if we wanted those things here?!), etc.
This is lovely math if you can get it. Take a place that you do not own (the waterfront owned by the citizens) and jack up fees to the public (citizens and visitors alike). How much have fees increased? In 2023 alone all fees for everything went up 25% to 100% over the prior year (2022 budget approval). The Waterfront Commission has continued to approve further fee increase since then and City Council approves it with a rubber stamp. Apparently, the ever expanding budget gets no scrutiny and citizens have no say. Staff tell the commissioners we need this and that and then raise the usage fees by double digits and if there is a surplus keep it and keep raising fees. This cannot stand it is outrageous.
Makes no sense, there are not bigger parking lots or more places to tie up a boat. Somehow, this Department does farcical comparisons to other cities of their cherry-picking. Not what we want; what we want is a reasonable place to live and hopefully, enjoy. All over the internet is talk of a “living wage” in SB. One can’t afford to go to the beach with these outrageous fees and lush salaries.
And this is the same Director who tried to get rid of the wind protection walls at Leadbetter so a bike path could be put right through it with of course no disclosure as to the truth (see Edhat).. It also appears as though the City/Dept does not want to provide law enforcement at that beach. The Waterfront has also been caught trying to take away other rights and privileges for which the public, as ever, gets no notice.
We are not being served if we afford go to the beach for a day. Sure, keep soaking visitors and price out the local folk.Boiling a Frog; don’t stand for it.
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=wiltshire+ (all in compensation table).
When evaluating claims like this, you should consider the source, which is neither transparent, nor California.
“Transparent California” is just one of the many names used by the tax-exempt “free-market think tank” Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI). NPRI refuses to divulge its own funding sources, stating, “NPRI respects the privacy of our donors, which includes the amount of a donor’s gift”.
NPRI’s primary funding source, as determined by The Conservative Transparency Project, is Donors Capital Fund, a dark-money source of funding for conservative groups. Its donors also include The Cato Institute, co-founded by the Koch brothers, and organizations affiliated with the climate change denial movement.
NPRI spends 75% of its revenue on six-figure salaries and benefits. Its goal is to undermine support for employee unions nationwide, thereby decreasing salaries and increasing corporate profits.
Interesting. But tell us – do you wanna pay more taxes, or not? Do you think fiscal-responsibility has been lost? Or are you just internet searching for a reason to argue with someone?
It’s like faster, better, cheaper, except it’s taxes, services, infrastructure, pick any two.
You seem to like to copy and paste this information. I would like to ask: is it accurate?
Yes, absolutely.
Funding for NPRI, which lately has been calling itself just Nevada Policy, and is the organization behind “Transparent California”:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Nevada_Policy_Research_Institute
https://www.scribd.com/document/180254866/NV-Who-Is-Behind-The-Nevada-Policy-Research-Institute
This last one is a little bit of a whitewash, but still lists the dark money groups behind their funding:
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/nevada-policy-research-institute/
Some good points, but you totally ignored BOATS. And slip fees. Sure, we can protest parking fees, but slips are worth a LOT and the city should profit from them. Big boat owners can afford it, though it pushes out regular folk.
I’m sure boat owners and live-aboards will argue with me and be angry, and I sympathize with them, but it is a huge source of revenue for the city and those whose “cheap” housing is on a boat are mostly in the anchorage anyway and more power to them! Slips are like, or are, housing in Santa Barbara — rare and expensive.
Actually Yin, very few slips are actually sold by the City. They do take rather large transfer fees ($300 a ft) and all sorts of other charges, but the slips themselves are sold privately between two private parties. The rates go up 5% annually regardless, as does the parking. The city does make a lot of money from the harbor and its in their interest to continue to promote it as a tourist destitution as they get a % of all the restaurants income. But for us slip holders, the lack of available parking, the clogged sidewalks and the massive number of idiots down there makes it a terrible situation for boaters to deal with on busy days.
The city in partnership with the county and the state, just spent $18.3 million on the year-long construction of two Montecito roundabouts. Over $9mill of taxpayer money spent for each roundabout — a circle of olive trees and sandstone retaining walls. That’s more money than the current going rate for a 5bd Montecito mansion. Talk about mismanagement of time and funds. And they want us to give them more? Vote no.
Wait….. VOICE? Welcome back if so. Also, absolutely agree with you on this.
It’s fun when you put it in that perspective… a roundabout, costs more than a Montecito Mansion.
And yet the roundabouts benefit everyone. So, what’s the problem? This is what taxes are for in a civilized country, and our tax burden here is much less.
” Anonymous” you are incorrect on two points above. The point immediately above is that taxes are too high and at the same time, the cost of work done is exorbitant. No way should a roundabout cost $9 M if that is indeed the case. $11 M to have a view of the ocean on State street is out of hand and completely unnecessary. Extremely poor judgement when so much of our infrastructure is decayed. As well, we’ve plenty of people to take care and this does not include those employees and consultants feasting at the City Trough.
Secondly, your attack on “Transparent CA” is misguided. The salary numbers are factual and result from government disclosure requirements. They are accurate. Prove me wrong or stop.
1) Not every post marked Anonymous is from the same person.
2) We in this nation are in a period of record low taxes compared to our own past history of taxation, and definitely pay less in taxes than people in civilized nations do.
3) If you don’t want public service employees, don’t expect any services or infrastructure.
4) Stop dredging your talking points from ignorant con social media.
Invoking Samuel Clemens clause: “Never argue with a fool, no one will know the difference.”