The community is invited to learn about how their sales tax dollars were spent at a public presentation of the 2016-17 Local Revenue Measure Annual Report on Thursday, April 12 at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall. All community members are encouraged to come, and the presentation will also be live streamed on the City’s Facebook page.
Neighborhood street paving and public safety accounted for nearly half of the $6.1 million in Local Revenue Measure funds (Measure G) spent by the City during the 2016-17 fiscal year. An additional $1.3 million in unspent funds remains assigned to capital improvement projects until completed.
The Local Revenue Measure was initially approved by City voters in 2006, then extended for another eight years in the 2014 election. The measure established a one-half percent sales tax, to be used to protect and maintain essential community services and facilities such as open space preservation, bike lanes and sidewalks, public safety, neighborhood street paving and code enforcement, flood protection and senior programs.
Spending priorities laid out in the measure help guide the Citizen’s Revenue Enhancement Oversight Committee, which makes recommendations to the Council about how the money should be spent. For every $1 of revenue generated by the Local Revenue Measure, $0.72 is paid by visitors and $0.28 is paid by City residents.
Last year, 25 percent of the $6.1 million was directed toward neighborhood street paving, which included the addition of buffered and green bike lanes on Los Osos Valley Road, Madonna Road, Longview Lane, and Johnson Street. The next biggest expenditure (23 percent) was directed toward public safety, which included funding for downtown police officers. Other targets for the money included:
- Flood protection (18 percent)
- Bicycle and pedestrian improvements (14 percent)
- Open space preservation, including adding 154 acres of open space with the acquisition of Waddell Ranch in 2017 (10 percent)
- Code enforcement (4 percent)
- Parks and recreation/senior programs and facilities (3 percent)
- Traffic congestion relief/safety improvements (3 percent)
A report in brief was included in all March city utility bills and the full report is available online at www.slocity.org/budget. The community presentation will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 12 at City Hall in the Council Chambers.