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By Mike Allen
June 30, 2024 (Santee) -- The Santee City Council has unanimously approved an initiative to raise the sales tax charged within the city by a half cent for improved fire protection, including two new stations and firefighters.
The measure, which would increase the tax on items sold in the city from 7.75 to 8.25 percent, will expire in 15 years if passed by a a simple majority of Santee voters in November. Called the Santee Emergency Safety Protection Ordinance, the initiative was championed by the Santee Firefighters Association, which collected some 3,800 valid signatures from city residents to qualify for the ballot.
The Council voted this week to place it on the ballot and forego a detailed report on how the funds would be spent.
Mayor John Minto said the city needs another revenue stream to pay for the needed fire stations and their operations, even though fire protection makes up the biggest share of its $62 million budget.
“We haven’t always put money aside to do certain things,” he said. “You can’t just keep putting rubber bands on things and hope they keep turning the wheels.”
Santee has two fire stations, the same number it had about 20 years ago when the city was much smaller than its current population of 60,000.
Councilman Rob McNelis said while he has fought against every tax measure that’s come before him in the past, he was supporting this one. He said the city had been putting funds aside for building new stations but in 2011, the state under Gov. Jerry Brown shut down the redevelopment agencies of all cities and took some $11 million of Santee’s funding for those projects.
“In today’s world, we have to figure out a new way to do this,” McNelis said.
He said another often-used financing mechanism, issuing public debt, wasn’t fair because then only property owners would be paying for the cost. With a sales tax, “this makes it fair and equitable for everyone.”
Councilwoman Laura Koval said the Council has made public safety a top priority and allocated funding to convert a city maintenance yard at Olive Avenue into a fire station, but more is needed and the city doesn’t have the money.
“The funding for the brick-and-mortar buildings is not in the budget and based on the realities, (paying for it) will need to be supported by a community measure,” she said.
However, Santee has budgeted funds for a new community center this year, a building costing about $12 million and will put the project out to bid in the coming fiscal year.
The Council later at its June 26 meeting approved the 2024-25 fiscal year budget of $62.2 million, which was a $2.6 million increase over the current fiscal year that ends June 30. The largest expense in that budget is fire and life safety at $20.8 million, or roughly one third of the total. The second largest spending is for the Sheriff’s Department contract at $17.8 million.
While many cities and government entities in California are running deficits, Santee’s finances are so strong, the Council voted to increase its reserve balance at a ratio of 22 percent of operating revenue, above a previous target of 20 percent.
The city saw its property tax revenue increase every year for the last several years, and for the current year these rose by about $1 million, and the coming year is expected to grow by about $900,000 to $26.2 million. The next largest revenue stream, sales taxes, is expected to rise by about $300,000 to $17.4 million, according to the city’s budget.
The San Diego County Taxpayers Association opposed the tax measure, saying that the city was engaging in “ballot box budgeting.”
The nonprofit organization also noted in its recent report that the tax measure only partially funds the city’s fire protection needs, according to a report done for the city, and the fact that the measure was led by the Santee firefighters union presents “an inherent conflict of interest.”
The SDCTA said Santee’s elected officials have the responsibility to propose tax measures to finance public services, “especially after having conducted studies to quantify a legitimate public need.”
The taxpayers group said while the city has a clear need to improve fire protection, inflicting a regressive tax increase that will hurt lower income residents much more isn’t the best way to go. The city should have considered alternatives, such as merging its fire department with another fire protection agency, the SDCTA said.
McNelis decried SDCTA’s recommendation, saying their objections weren’t realistic. Minto interjected that the SDCTA unusually supports tax measures of cities that belong to the association, “and we’re not.”
The sales tax increase will join another countywide measure on the November ballot that seeks to increase the sales tax by a half cent to pay for a variety of transportation projects. if that passes, then local residents will be facing a full 1 percent increase to their sales tax to 8.75 percent of the goods they purchase.
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