Lemoore City Council takes the next step in seeking general sales tax hike

By Ed Martin, Editor
Lemoore Mayor Ray Madrigal
Lemoore Mayor Ray Madrigal

Lemoore city officials are preparing a draft resolution and ordinance in anticipation of placing a local sales tax measure on the November ballot. The city's action will call for a one percent general sales tax increase from the current 7.25 percent to 8.25 percent.

The council should see the resolution and ordinance at its July 17 regular council meeting. The public will also have an opportunity to chime in during a required public hearing. Councilmembers Dave Brown and Jeff Chedester agreed to begin the process as did Mayor Ray Madrigal.

At stake is a continuing lack of revenues to meet the demands of a growing community. This year’s proposed 2018-19 budget was not balanced when recently presented to the Lemoore City Council, and it was important to note that while revenues “minimally” meet the city’s basic services requirements, city officials can often find it difficult to find funding for strategic initiatives (economic development) and future growth.  

If passed in November, the additional sales tax revenue could bring in an additional $1.900,000 per year to fund a variety of city services. Currently, city revenues come from a variety of sources: Motor Vehicle In-Lieu fees, enterprise funds, property taxes, and of course sales tax.

For more than an hour, at their June 5 study session, councilmembers debated the wisdom of seeking a tax hike. While councilmembers discussed the merits, only Councilmember Holly Blair was a solid no, arguing that a sales tax is a regressive tax and would hit the poor the hardest.

Defending her position, Blair told those in council chambers that Lemoore suffers from a 68 percent poverty rate, a figure that doesn’t appear to mesh with existing statistics, or for that matter come anywhere close.  If true, a sales tax could disproportionally affect low-income residents forcing them to spend more of their income on goods and services.

“I personally don’t like (the) sales tax mostly because I find them regressive,” said Blair, adding that such a tax would disproportionately affect low-income residents. “Let’s say you have ten dollars in your pocket and somebody else had 100 dollars in their pocket, and you have to pay one dollar in sales tax, well, you only have nine dollars left, and somebody else has $99, meaning that’s a larger portion of money out of your pocket the poorer you are,” she said. “That’s something I consider, considering we have 68 percent of people living in poverty. I worry about the poverty we have.”

Whether Blair misspoke is unknown, but several persons said she did, in fact, claim a 68 percent Lemoore poverty rate. Fortunately, her worries are unfounded. According to the United States Census Fact Finder, Lemoore currently has a 16.5 percent poverty rate, well below Blair’s 68 percent rate. According to the Public Policy Institute of America, the Central Valley tends to run higher (14.2 percent) than the rest of California, which unfortunately boasts the nation’s highest poverty rate at 14.3 percent.   

At stake for Lemoore’s citizens is the approval of a general sales tax, which if councilmembers decide to move forward on July 17, will place the tax measure on the November ballot.

A general sales tax requires approval by a simple majority of voters, while the alternative, a special tax, requires 66.6 percent approval. A general sales tax would provide local funding for essential services and facilities, such as fire protection, emergency medical response, police services, parks and recreation. Passage would include an oversight committee and annual financial audits.

The proposed tax measure would have a “sunset” provision ending the tax after seven years.

Currently, only Corcoran has a higher tax rate. At 8.25 percent it is the only city in Kings County to approve a sales tax increase. However, Tulare County’s five cities all have passed tax increases, ranging from 7.75 percent to 8.75 percent.

“We’re in deficit this year,” said Lemoore City Manager Nathan Olson. “There is a need. We need money to do some things we need to do,” citing much-need road projects and improved economic development. He added that city staff, despite dwindling revenues, has done an excellent job of managing departmental budgets, and he said that with cuts and savings, the city would hopefully break even by the end of the fiscal year.

Lemoore voters have been particularly generous to local governmental institutions in recent years, approving several bond measures (West Hills College) and Lemoore High School's 2016 $24 million bond to renovate its facilities.

Also, in 2016, local voters nearly passed a Kings County sales tax measure for public safety. Measure K lost twice in 2016, narrowly failing in the June and November elections. In both elections Lemoore voters overwhelmingly approved the .25 sales tax measure, which would have raised about $4 million per year. County-wide, voters turned it down despite garnering 65 percent. It needed a little over 66 percent to win.

However, Lemoore voters liked what they saw on the 2016 ballot, and if it had been up to them, would have passed the measure with 68.31 percent of the vote. Lemoore voters garnered 72 percent of the vote in the June 2016 primary.

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