Californians Must be Prepared for an Onslaught of Tax Increases this November

Observer Staff

Your vote is essential. Educate yourself on the issues and not just the main event.

Your November ballot is going to be an orgy of tax increases that would make the Kama Sutra blush.

In the main arena, we see that state lawmakers have unbuckled old restraints that have stopped local governments from taking on too much debt. The 1879 California constitution stated, "No county, city, town, township, Board of Education, or school district, shall incur any indebtedness or liability in any manner, or for any purpose ... without the assent of two thirds of the qualified electors thereof...."

How repressed and Victorian! Today's legislature giddily greased up the ballot to allow new debt to be passed with only 55% approval instead of two-thirds. Their handiwork is Proposition 5 on the November statewide ballot.

Technically, Prop. 5 doesn't apply to all debt for everything, only debt for infrastructure, which is everything, and for publicly funded housing projects and programs.

This has elicited squeals of delight from the gang at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the nine-county Bay Area, which is behind the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority proposal for a $20 billion housing bond. Regional Measure 4 would raise property taxes in the nine counties, and the money would be spread around like butter. The measure would have a tough climb to get the currently required 66.7% approval from voters. But if Prop. 5 is approved in November, Regional Measure 4 will be declared passed if it receives just 55% of the vote.

If you're a registered voter in California, your ballot will arrive in the mail in the first week of October. Don't be shy, even if you're a newbie at this orgy business. Tear open the envelope and dive right into the local measures. You may even hear moans of pleasure emanating from the "infrastructure" and "affordable housing" bonds inserted into the ballot late, when no one was reading the August government meeting agendas.

The ballot will likely tell you how much each of these measures will cost you, usually described as pennies per $100 of assessed value of your home, or tens of dollars per $100,000 of value. Your local government is counting on the fact that nobody likes to do math at an orgy. But if you do the math, you'll see that many of these bonds will increase property taxes by hundreds of dollars per year on a median-priced house. Multiply your annual tax increase by 30 years to see how much the bonds will cost you over time.

Then call your neighbors and tell them not to throw out their ballot, because voting no on Prop. 5 and mailing it right back is the best thing you can do to stop the tax hikes. It's easier than buying a lottery ticket and the odds of winning are much better.

Another category of bonds, school bonds, already pass with 55% approval instead of two-thirds. That's the result of a change to the state constitution that was made 24 years ago by voters who were persuaded that school districts needed to borrow money more easily for things like removing asbestos and lead from school buildings. Check your ballot and you'll probably see a new school bond measure seeking to borrow hundreds of millions or even billions more, also to remove asbestos and lead from school buildings. It's like a fetish at this point.

The latest party to join the tax orgy is the Los Angeles Unified School District, which just unveiled a $9 billion bond measure and voted it onto the ballot in a matter of days. The tax increase that will pay for it was well hidden in a 50-page pdf file of materials accompanying the agenda for the school board meeting. Here's what it said: "Based on current estimates, the $9 billion proposal is estimated to levy [tax] approximately 2.504 cents per $100 of assessed valuation...."

Observer Staff

Vote No on Proposition 5. It will make it much easier to throw bonds and other taxation onto your property taxes.

I'll do the math for you. The median price of a home in the city of Los Angeles in June 2024 was $1,098,000. On that value, the LAUSD tax increase would be $274.94 the first year, and every year it would adjust upward with inflation as the assessed value of the home increases. That increase is capped at 2% annually by Proposition 13, which not incidentally is under serious attack by politicians, special interests and the courts.

In fact, there's another arena in this orgy, hidden off to the side as if the participants know that it may not be completely legal. That's where you'll find the naked "Upland tax" scam.

The nickname comes from a 2017 state Supreme Court decision in a case called California Cannabis Coalition v. City of Upland. The court suggested, without actually deciding, that if a tax increase is placed on the ballot by a "citizens' initiative," the state constitution may not apply. Instead of a two-thirds vote, perhaps a simple majority vote - 50% plus one - would be enough.

So now, on local ballots up and down the state of California, there are "citizens' initiative tax increases" that benefit public employee unions, developers who receive government contracts and non-profit groups that pay six-figure salaries to their executives to "manage" homelessness programs funded by your tax dollars. All these groups are oiled up and wallowing in the pleasure of passing tax increases for their own benefit, free from the stuffy constitutional constraint of a two-thirds vote requirement.

Two Upland taxes on the November ballot in Los Angeles County are a sales tax increase that benefits the homeless-industrial complex and a parcel tax that benefits the county firefighters' union. The least shocking thing at this orgy is that the signature collection to get these measures on the ballot was paid for by, you guessed it, the homeless-industrial complex and the county firefighters' union.

Mark your calendar for mid-September to start reminding your friends, family and neighbors to watch for their ballot in early October. Vote no on Prop. 5 and on all the tax increases or you may wake up after this orgy to find that you've lost your pants and your wallet is missing.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley