Most of the council agreed that their decision allows the public to decide what to do about the nearly $5 million budget deficit the city faces this fiscal year.
“It’s ultimately in the hands of the voters,” Councilman Mike Maciel said.
An independent survey taken earlier this year found that more than 60 percent of likely voters in Tracy would approve the tax increase if it came with a five-year sunset clause, city officials reported to the council last month.
Assistant City Manager Maria Hurtado said almost 94 percent of the city’s budget comes from property taxes and sales taxes, and the decline in property taxes has hurt the city financially. She said that the revenue that could potentially be generated by the increase would help the city “maintain the current level of service.”
Several residents spoke in opposition to the tax increase, however, including City Council candidate Larry Gamino.
“Now is not the time to tax the citizens of Tracy an extra half-cent sales tax,” Gamino said.
He said a new tax would be an “unfair burden on small businesses” and reminded the public that San Joaquin County has a 16.5 percent jobless rate. He urged the council to look into other ways to pay for public safety, which accounts for about 220 of 470 city employees.
Tucker said she wants to see city employees take a 10 percent pay cut and expressed concern about how an increase in sales tax would impact overall sales.
Tucker opposed adding additional taxes that she said would take money out of the local economy and suggested scaling back health care benefits and pensions for city employees.
City Manager Leon Churchill said bargaining agreements with unions have been ongoing and new contracts that include pay cuts, more furloughs and lower pensions will be taken to the City Council for approval later in the month.
Over the past two years, the city has reduced staffing by 90 employees, which Churchill estimated amounts to about $4 million in savings. He said all city employees, including public safety, would need to take a 25 percent pay cut to make up for the $4.8 million budget deficit in the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Without cutting into public safety, which has yet to see major cuts or reductions, he estimated city employees would need to take between 40 to 50 percent pay cut to plug the budget gap.
“If you want the services, the item is necessary,” Churchill said.
• Contact reporter Jaclyn Hirsch at 830-4223 or jhirsch@tracypress.com.
It's the frivolous spending. When the money was good, this type of activity could be easily over looked.
It is time for an audit, adjustments need to be made.
Find a candidate to take this position, good luck.
After watching the City Staff and Council play with Community Block Grant funds like it was Monopoly money, I didn’t get a warm feeling about how this tax increase would be allocated. They decided to use $48,000 of the $70,000 allotted to a project for the Senior Center (which hadn’t been started) to pay another year’s consulting fee for New Age America. During the last two years, this firm has been given $30,000 for a feasibility plan and $50,000 to create a non-profit status for our Downtown. How giving money to New Age America qualifies as a “benefit to low and moderate income persons” (as stated in CBDG guidelines) is really a stretch! The “use it or lose it” mentality of the Staff and Council also angered me because those grant funds are my tax dollars.
Increasing the sales tax will not bring more revenue into the City. Incomes haven’t increased and in most cases have decreased. When taxes are raised, people have to compensate to fit their budget and buy less! Tracy currently has one of the lowest tax rates in San Joaquin County, so why not promote that as a reason to buy in Tracy. The City Staff stated that 40% of our sales tax revenue comes from out-of-towners, so why lose that revenue by increasing our tax to match everyone else?
Thank you, Suzanne Tucker, for being a voice of reason to the rest of the Bobble Heads on the Council. She voted against giving New Age America the funds and also against having the tax increase added to the ballot. Too bad she is retiring. The voters of Tracy have the opportunity in November to not only vote NO on this tax increase, but to vote n a new mayor and two council members. See you at the polls
Seems they want the lower ranking employees to take the cut... but, pay higher taxes on their purchases?
Tucker...no reduction on health care benefits for your employees unless you want to trim your health insurance benefits, too? Fairness, remember?
All the more reason to have private and independent auditor to look over the city's books!! Might help save $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
CN
Do away with that stupid D.A.R.E program.
Better yet, Let's do away with any recovery based programs so we can tax alcohol and drugs.
There will be more drug addicts and drunks to tax.
By doing away with the D.A.R.E program, we can get them started early, therefore, tax them NOW!. Why wait?
Be proactive, NOT reactive.
We can spend(OPM) Other People Money
Build another park for the gang bangers to hang out in, keeps them away from that revitalized downtown with that old town look it never had before. So we can turn on those purdy lights that nobody needs because nobody is there. Run those lights all night, after all, you are not paying the bill.
Independent poll? If you are going to tax the other side of the street, I vote yes, tax my side of the street, I vote NO!
Ms. Tucker, 6 months ago you were all for a sales tax increase, Parcel tax increase too. Now that it gets close to election, you switch sides.
Don't worry, By reading these comments, they will never get it.
Like with children, change the subject, they will forget in a couple seconds. Move on.
Please pay attention to how much Churchill makes.
There is no excuse for that.
The Council should have seen this coming, look ath the slides posted here on the city website
http://www.ci.tracy.ca.us/modules/dms/file_retrieve.php?function=view&obj_id=334
particularly
It is Only March
San Joaquin Residential Permits
San Joaquin Annual Appreciation
Rates 2000-2007
San Joaquin Wage and Salary
Employment
This was produced in early 2008, GW Bush still in office, no economic crisis or TARP had happened yet, but the indicators of slowing in the local economy were all there
There may not be a necessity for a real large cut in the actual salaries across the board, but I think we may find from looking at the figures that the time has come to make realistic counter-offers to city employee unions to cut overall compensation without needing to make large additional cuts to headcounts or paychecks.
You can't solve money problems with more money!
If you throw more money into the mix you don't change the spending behavior you simply enable it.
The solution to money problems is to reduce spending, and that includes salary cuts for city administration. If that's 10% across the board then make the cuts. Not by furloughs but by actual reductions in pay because we all know furloughs are just a bandaid and not a cure. All furloughs do is reduce take home pay but not the value or cost of benefits.
The city manager should reduce his $212,000 salary and his lucrative benefits package by at least 10% as it's apparent he's still behind the learning curve when it comes to solving these problems. That is unless someone at city hall isn't telling the truth about the state of the deficit, which wouldn't surprise me...
The remainder of the city administration should cut their salaries, and benefits, by 10% as well. This may send a pretty strong message that they're serious about finding a solution to the problem.
Give this man a prize!
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
Rarely have truer words Ever been spoken.
Also, Hats off to Mr. Churchill. We now have a solution to the problem. Cut all city pay by 25%. Reality is reality. My household will be voting NO on the tax increase in November. Get the city employees notified and begin the process to hire new employees at the reduced rate to replace those that choose not to stay on at the new, lowered, budget-balancing rate.
Woo Hoo! A Real solution!
Regarding what people are saying.
Most of the people commenting and writing letters to the TP write about how they love to shop elsewhere in other cities with higher taxes. One person even wrote a whole series on it.
Even with the tax currently being lower in Tracy those people still love to shop where taxes are higher.
So. If the voters approve the increase we will still have lower taxes and folks will feel better spending a little more at home?
It seems if people really do want to spend more. The difference is. Now they can save on fuel costs.
3 = no votes in this household
I did my homework on the subject, and I wish I had a chance to dialogue and speak further after the council members had made their statements. The explanation by three people on the council for voting yes was that they wanted to give this to the voters of Tracy.
That is not the way to run a city. The council needs to lead us out of the budget problem by making cuts, they didn't ask us to vote to increase compensation packages of city employees, police and firefighters, now did they?
This is not a democracy wherein the voters make the decisions in such a manner. I read something last week that as of now 60% of the population of the US receives more in $$ in government benefits than they pay in taxes, and with ObamaCare and more entitlements coming, we are going to approach 70% soon enough.
It reminded me of a quote which I looked up after the meeting, the quote is:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature;
it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship”
- Alexander Tytler 1787 (has also been attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville)
One council member talked about fiscal problems of the state of CA and the federal government, and asked that the city not be painted with a broad brush. Well, the buck stops somewhere. In this case it needs to stop with the Tracy City Council.
My vote will be NO on this tax increase. And Suzanne Tucker is the only CC member worthy of re-election at this point. She understands correctly that you can't tax your way out of a fiscal hole.