The Oakland City Council voted Monday to place a half-cent sales tax increase on a special election ballot in April to help fix a long-term structural budget problem but declined to ask voters to weigh in on a proposed parcel tax.
If approved by a majority of voters in the April 15 special election — which also includes a mayoral and a City Council seat contest — the measure would hike the city’s sales tax from 10.25 percent to 10.75 percent.
The tax “will help stabilize our finances and prevent further erosion in city services, so without the added revenue Oakland will be forced to do deeper cuts that threaten critical community programs such as public safety, cultural arts, human services and undermining the city’s quality of life and economic vitality,” said Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who sponsored the proposal.
Depending on economic conditions and consumer behavior, the measure is expected to raise an additional $20 million a year in the next budget cycle and roughly $30 million annually thereafter for the city’s general fund if it is approved. It would expire after 10 years.
Jenkins said six other Alameda County cities already have sales taxes of 10.75 percent, including Alameda, Newark, San Leandro, Albany, Hayward and Union City.
The council voted 6-0 to place the measure on the ballot, with councilmembers Carroll Fife and Janani Ramachandran excused.
Putting a dent in the deficit
Even if approved by voters in April, the measure won’t help with this year’s roughly $130 million budget deficit, but is intended to put a dent in the city’s projected $130 million to $150 million ongoing “structural” deficit.
Still, even in the face of those daunting shortfalls, the council struck down a proposal to add a new parcel tax to the April ballot.
With a vote of 4-1, with Councilmember Dan Kalb in favor, the council declined to move forward with a tax that was intended to raise a little more than $23 million annually for the city’s notoriously understaffed oversight committees, including the Public Ethics Commission, the Auditor’s Office, the Inspector General’s Office, the Police Commission and the Community Police Review Agency.
These agencies are tasked with auditing city services, investigating corruption, overseeing police misconduct and ensuring compliance with campaign finance rules, among other things.
“This is really difficult to say … but I really believe that we have to do this legislation right and it’s too complicated to do in a matter of weeks.” Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas
“Cuts to our budget and the ongoing threat of further reductions really hurt our agency’s ability to achieve even its core functions,” said Ryan Micik, chairman of the city’s Public Ethics Commission. “We’ve had to delay major initiatives, we’ve had to stall enforcement cases and as you know we recently lost our enforcement chief due to the city’s lack of support.”
Council president Nikki Fortunato Bas, however, said certain provisions of the proposal were too complex to iron out in the short timeline required to get it on the ballot in April and she was concerned that it would compete with the sales tax measure.
“This is really difficult to say, especially because these organizations are very important to me and very important to the city, but I really believe that we have to do this legislation right and it’s too complicated to do in a matter of weeks,” Bas said, adding that she hopes the City Council can revisit proposal for a 2026 ballot.