Stop Contra Costa County’s gravy train, vote against Measure X
Come election time, sure as night follows day, voters can expect public agencies to seek new taxes — often, ultimately, to continue underwriting lifetime, luxury-class passes on the government gravy train.
Such campaigns typically divert public attention from already generous public-sector compensation schemes, with emotive entreaties and shiny-object distractions.
The East Bay Times, alert to such misdirection, began initially in an Oct. 4 editorial to challenge Measure X, the 0.5% sales tax increase placed by Contra Costa County supervisors on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The article observed that many residents struggle already to pay bills during the pandemic, and that sales taxes are regressive, disproportionately burdening the poor. Additionally, since Measure X is a general tax, the Times warned that its advertised purposes, specified to attract voters, are “not legally binding,” and proceeds could in fact fund “any legitimate governmental purpose.”
Thereby, Measure X revenues could be “siphoned off into salary and benefit increases rather than expanded services.” Belying proponent ballot-argument claims, Measure X does not provide for an oversight board. Further, tax increases during acute economic downturns should be temporary, so Measure X’s 20year length “alone is a legitimate reason for voters to reject it.” Cue the violins.
County assertions of “intense financial pressure,” from “long before the pandemic, to adequately provide health care for the needy,” to “address homelessness and provide fire prevention” — along with the fact that nearby counties already charge higher sales-tax rates — persuaded the Times, despite its reservations, to endorse Measure X.
We doubt that most county residents hope to “win” the salestax leapfrog game over other counties. The Times was right that the measure did indeed get started under focused pressure, long before COVID-19 emerged. It happened at a May 21, 2019, Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors meeting, when five county union representatives demanded a new sales tax increase.
Contra Costa civil grand juries have addressed genuinely critical financial concerns, in findings dating back to 2002. That year’s report, now missing from the county’s online archive, concluded that the county should “Neither approve nor adopt any new pension benefit improvements that would require additional funding or add further to retirement plan indebtedness.”
But as related 2002-2003 Times stories reported, myopic county supervisors and county retirement board members disregarded the grand jury’s pleas and also ignored expert actuarial advice, leaving taxpayers on the hook for massive new pension obligations.
Additional reports from county grand juries empaneled in subsequent years continued to worry about pension spending, current compensation numbers and resultant budget dislocations and insufficiencies.
The future they predicted is now, yet irresponsible salary and benefit expenditures continue. The budget itself shows that employee compensation increased by 20% since 2017. Many of those whose taxes finance county compensation increases, having suffered pandemic-driven job losses and other financial distress, probably wish they could now simply restore their own 2017-level earnings.
Tax-funded public agencies, hoping to dodge public perception of such imbalances, are usually not so brazen as to apply general tax revenues directly to enhance employee compensation after advertising them for something else. Instead, because employee compensation comes from a “general fund,” agency supervisors can “free up” general fund dollars allocated for (let’s say) supplies, use those indirectly for compensation — and simultaneously backfill the supply allocation with the new tax revenues.
We believe that’s Measure X’s long-term intent, over the next 20 years. It’s time to sidetrack the county gravy train. Please vote no on Measure X.