SAN JOSE — For the third time in two years, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez’s push to place a 5/8-cent sales tax measure on the ballot was shot down Tuesday.
Although three supervisors voted for it — Chavez, Susan Ellenberg and Dave Cortese — the measure required four yes votes to qualify for the Nov. 3 ballot. Board Vice President Mike Wasserman and Supervisor Joe Simitian dissented.
The proposed tax increase could have raised about $250 million annually for the next five years for social services to help alleviate some of the “human suffering” caused by the coronavirus pandemic and to help reduce a projected budget shortfall of $300 million-$600 million, according to Chavez.
“I believe we are going to look back on today and be very dissatisfied with ourselves,” she said after the vote.
Had it ultimately been approved, the increase would have boosted the county’s sales tax rate from 9% to 9.625%, making it the highest of any county in the state.
Both Simitian and Wasserman said they didn’t want to impose a regressive tax during a period of hardship for so many in a county with an already high sales tax rate.
And as he has before, Simitian said he’s also concerned about how much the county budget has grown over the last several years and noted there’s no guarantee the extra money would go into the kind of services suggested. As a general tax, its spending would be up to the board majority’s discretion.
“While the conversation has focused on the exigencies of the moment, I think it’s worth noting this is a measure that has now been before us three times in the last two and a half years. Long before COVID had arrived on the scene, there was an effort to pass the five-eighth-cent sales tax. We had the conversations and the votes weren’t there,” Simitian said.
He said he didn’t want to overburden people who are out of work, struggling with reduced hours.
“There is just a limit to how much I think we can appropriately pile up on them, especially for a general tax,” he said.
“Right now, businesses and families and employees are having to make very tough choices with the dollars they have. The county is now going to have to make very tough choices with the dollars we have, it’s only fair,” Wasserman said.
While in past years the tax increase was needed to expand and maintain social services such as for domestic and sexual violence survivors, child care and mental health, Chavez said the coronavirus pandemic has made the need even greater.
“This is probably one of the deepest economic drops, and I hope…that there will be a rebound. But I want to remind everybody that the communities that rebound the least are the communities that need us most,” Chavez said.
“We know from a recent report that 43,000 households are at risk of becoming homeless. We know that our homeless encampments are growing by leaps and bounds every day throughout our community, and that we’re doing our best to build supportive housing, but we’re going to need immediate shelter for many, many people,” she said.
She also warned that the county likely will have to make staff cuts and reduce assistance to nonprofits during budget discussions later this month.
“I do think this is a good idea, I do think we should let the voters decide, and I do think we should do it…before we have even more human suffering,” Chavez said.
“I do not believe the cavalry is coming,” she said, “I think we are the cavalry and we need to act for ourselves at a local level.”
But Simitian and Wasserman remained opposed.
“A five-eighth-cent sales tax, added on to our current taxing…would make Santa Clara County the highest taxed county in the state,” Wasserman said.
“Being the highest taxed county in the state is not something I’d be proud of saying I accomplished in my time,” he added.