County officials bracing for draconian budget cuts are exploring
whether voters can stomach a new sales tax.
San Jose – County officials bracing for draconian budget cuts are exploring whether voters can stomach a new sales tax.
A public opinion survey was commissioned June 4 by Santa Clara County Executive Pete Kutras, though his office has not yet released draft questions that voters will be asked in coming weeks.
The $65,000 contract with Tramutola LLC, an Oakland political consulting firm, did not require formal approval by county supervisors under a policy allowing Kutras to independently sign contracts less than $100,000.
The poll comes as officials prepare to slash $200 million or more in county programs and services, and just more than a year after county voters rejected a half-cent tax proposal.
Kutras declined to speculate on the outcome of the latest polling effort, but said the consequences of the county’s budget crisis are unavoidable this year.
“We’ll be left with a substantial deficit no matter what we do with one-time funds,” he said, referring to departmental budget surpluses, legal settlements and other unexpected funding sources that have helped plug shortfalls in recent years.
“Miracles” and “magic” can no longer buoy the county’s $4.2 billion budget, Kutras and other supervisors acknowledged at a Tuesday meeting in San Jose.
“We will have to continue to make expenditure reductions because voters rejected our tax measure” in June 2006, Kutras said. “There’s not a revenue solution that’s readily available.”
More than 57 percent of county voters opposed the half-cent Measure A sales tax in the 2006 primary election. That measure would have bumped the county sales tax from 8.25 percent to 8.75 percent and generated an estimated $160 million for programs and services.
Despite the failure of Measure A, county officials managed to close the $160 million gap between spending and revenues in fiscal 2007, and repeated the feat for the current fiscal year’s $227 million projected deficit.
That success could prove the biggest obstacle to a sales tax measure, according to District 1 Supervisor Don Gage, who represents South County.
“I don’t think it stands a chance,” Gage said of a potential tax measure. “Every time we have a budget and we have a big deficit like we did, we’d go solve it with one-time money and make it look like everything’s OK. Problem is, the one-time money is going to run out … The people think everything’s fine. They think that we’re crying wolf.”
Tough choices will have to be made this year, according to Gage and Kutras.
In coming months, after county staff have squeezed savings from departmental budgets that have consistent “one-time” surpluses, supervisors will set about the job of prioritizing programs and jobs to cut.
Gage said his top priority is finding $1.2 billion to bring the Valley Medical Center into compliance with state earthquake standards.
“For one thing, I think you have to have a hospital,” Gage said. “I’m not so sure you have to have alcohol and drug (treatment). I’m not so sure we should subsidize mental health wellness.”
On Tuesday, District 2 Supervisor Blanca Alvarado urged county officials to look for long-term savings that can reduce the need for juvenile detention, health programs and other pricey social services.
Alvarado voted against placing the Measure A half-cent sales tax on the June 2006 ballot due to concerns over public distrust of the ballot measure. Many residents, especially those in South County, viewed the proposed sales tax as a back-door to finance a controversial project to extend BART from Fremont to San Jose. Such fears grew after the Valley Transportation Authority, in the face of polling that showed certain defeat at the hands of voters, withdrew a quarter-cent sales tax proposal in the months leading up to the June 2006 primary.
Not long after, the county proposed a half-cent tax proposal without earmarking the funds for specific uses, acknowledging that some funds could be steered toward transportation.
Alvarado could not be reached for comment on the possibility of another tax measure.
“Most certainly we should explore all possibilities to help with our budget deficits and provide services,” said Kristina Cunningham, chief of staff for Alvarado. “So Blanca would be open to exploring the idea and would make her decision after particulars came out.”
Kutras expects to present the results of the public opinion poll to supervisors by early 2008. County staff said the poll is likely to be conducted over a two-day period in coming weeks.
