THE HERMOSA BEACH UTILITY TAX UPDATES |
Including:
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Updates
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*Updates Page - Hermosa
Beach*
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This Updates page
contains information added to this site since the 2001
election - including info about the November 2007 City
Council-sponsored Utility Tax increase, Measure "H." This page was last edited on December 9, 2009. |
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2009:
The
Surpluses
Continue
During the 2001 election
period, there was great contention as to whether there
were surpluses, or not. On the original
site's Facts page (still up! - see link at the top of
this page), under Topic # 1, we wrote:
"We have said that the City does not need the utility tax because it has consistently been running budget surpluses that are now roughly equal to the utility tax revenue - a $2.4 million surplus last year, a $1.5 million surplus the year before that." In 2007 we were surprised to see the re-emergence of 2001's uneducated "It's not a surplus, it's a rollover" argument. It was particularly unsettling to see it coming from councilmembers who by now should have some understanding of municipal finances. The 2007 "rollover" claim went like this: "It's not a surplus, it's extra money we roll over to the next year's budget where we spend it on street repairs." Our response hasn't changed - see Topic # 1 on the 2001 Facts page. In 2008 there was another surplus. And again in 2009. The 2001 and Later Surpluses The 2001 and later
surpluses in the table below were obtained from the same
official annual tabulation we used to determine the
pre-2001 surpluses. Copies of the 2001 and later
tabulations are at the bottom of this page.***
**During FY
2004-2005 (ended 6-30-05) the City paid $4,200,000
cash to purchase
the public storage property immediately south of City
Hall. Even after that major expenditure, the
City's Comprehensive
Annual Financial Report showed (at page 30) that
for all
governmental funds (including the General Fund), there
was a "net change in fund balances" (surplus) of
$968,849. Had the City not made the $4.2 million
land purchase, that surplus would have been
approximately $5.2 million.
***The surpluses for 2005 - 2009 have been adjusted to reverse the City's "Designated Sales Tax In-Lieu Cash Flow Adjustment." ****Source document
to be available December 2010.
The Bank Balances Have Continued to Rise On the original site's
Facts page, under Topic # 1, we wrote: "If, year after year, you
spend less than you take in (run a surplus), the
balance in your bank accounts or investments goes up.
The City's bank accounts and investments have grown
50%, rising from $14 million up to $21 million, in
just the last two years."
That was in 2001. At the
end of Fiscal Year 2006-2007 the bank balance was $23.9
Million. And it would have been
approximately $28 million had the City not made the $4.2
million land purchase in Spring of 2005. The bank
balances for 1993 onward are depicted below, in an
update of the graph found at the link noted in Topic # 1
on the Facts page.
The source documents are discussed at the bottom of this page. ********* Source Documents Source Documents for the Surpluses: "Formula to Determine Transfer of General Fund Unexpended Balance" Obtained from: City Finance Department Note regarding terminology: Until 1996 the City called a surplus a "surplus." (See that year's tabulation.) Beginning with 1997 a surplus has been called an "Unexpended Balance." Surplus FY Ending 6-30-01: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-02: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-03: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-04: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-05: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-06: 199 = Contingency Fund 301 = Capital Improvement Fund 705 = Insurance Fund 715 = Equipment Replacement Fund An on-line source of this information is the City's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ("CAFR") - see the middle of page 10 of the CAFR (the 24th image in the pdf file). Surplus FY Ending 6-30-07: An on-line source of this information is the City's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ("CAFR") - see the top of page 10 of the CAFR (the 24th image in the pdf file). Surplus FY Ending 6-30-08: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-09: Surplus FY Ending 6-30-10: Document to be available December 2010. Source Documents for the Bank Balances: The source documents
(monthly Treasurer's Reports) for the 1993 - 2001 Fiscal
Year-ending bank balances are available on this site, at
the link noted in Topic # 1 on the Facts page.
Beginning with October 2002, the monthly Treasurer's
Report are available online on the City's website, as a
click-able link in the agenda
for the second council meeting of each month.
Special note,
Oct. 2007: Purely by coincidence, the 2007
City-sponsored measure to increase
the UUT was given the same ballot letter
designation "H" as the 2001 Citizen-sponsored
measure to repeal the UUT!
All documents reproduced here were obtained lawfully.. |
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Stop the Expansion of the Utility Tax - on
Nov. 6, 2007 Vote "No" on Measure H This is info about the November 2007 City-sponsored Utility Tax increase, Measure "H." It was last edited on November 2, 2007. Measure H is a tax
increase, cleverly disguised as a decrease. In
your Sample Ballot booklet, the official ballot title
for Measure H has the word "reduces" in the middle of
the top line.
Don't be fooled by the "r" word! Measure H is actually an expansion of the Utility Tax. When you read just a little further along in the ballot title, you find the Measure's true nature: "Shall an ordinance be adopted that... 2) protects the tax… 3) includes new communication technologies." In other words, the tax is to be maintained, and expanded to apply to new types of services. The Impartial Analysis says the same thing: "The proposed ordinance would... apply the... tax to all types of communication and video services..." Seniors: You're exempt from this tax, but vote "no" anyway; send City Hall the message that you don't like it when they try to trick the voters. Aside from sending City
Hall a needed message, the dollars-and-cents
justification for a "no" vote is that the City has had
big budget surpluses for the last 11 years - $2.6
million was the most recent one - and doesn't need more
taxes. (The surpluses are documented below.)
Repeated surpluses are what built up the huge cash
deposits (see graph below) which allowed the City to pay
$4 million cash for the property south of City
Hall. The surpluses are likely to continue - the
Mermaid property is up for sale and is likely to be
turned into hotel space with a substantial 10% bed tax
stream, all of which goes to City Hall. Also, the
property tax on that land will go up manyfold, and the
City gets 1/5 of that. The
"yes"
on H movement is like your kid asking for an increase
in his allowance when you can't help but notice that
he has piles of coins and paper money all around his
room, gathering dust. If in the future the City
actually needs a new or increased tax, the Council could
easily put a tax measure on the ballot at that time, and
it would require only a simple majority (50%) to
pass. In the meantime, the saying "Money burns a
hole in your pocket" applies to governments too.
When government has excess money it squanders it to
benefit fat cats and special interests. At the
federal level think pork barrel projects and crop
subsidies. At the city level we don't need to look
any further than the residential taxpayer-subsidized
security for the downtown club scene. Hermosa's
Utility Tax has almost entirely been switched from the
originally promised sewer repair, to paying for the
ever-increasing cost of policing Hermosa's bars.
Policing the downtown club scene should NOT be paid for
by a tax on residents. It should be paid for by a
tax or business license fee applied to the clubs -
something that almost was on the Nov. 6 ballot, except
that the council shied away at the last
moment. Vote no on Measure “H” November 6. *The change to 5-1/2%
does not apply to electricity, water or gas bills. They
remain taxed at 6 percent. The 5-1/2% rate would
apply to local land-wired telephone and cable TV, and if
you approve Measure H it will additionally tax a whole
host of “new communication technologies” not presently
taxed. To be taxed at 5-1/2 percent will be
telephone, cable TV, Internet telephones, FIOS cable
services, satellite TV, wireless telephones and systems,
and additionally, future new wireless telecommunications
and methods. The dollar amount you pay will increase
every year as all these communication services increase. In late October 2007 "Yes on H"
began claiming: "If this tax goes away we can never
get it back, even if we need it." Also, they have
been saying that a 2/3 vote would be needed in order to
reinstate the tax. Both claims are flatly
untrue. California law is very clear: Just as
it will take only a 50% "yes" vote to pass Measure H, it
takes only a 50% vote to impose a brand new tax. It
is surprising that the councilmembers behind "Yes on H"
are unfamiliar with the law - especially since the same
disinformation tactic was used, and debunked, during the
2001 election. (Read "Topic # 11"
on the 2001 Facts page of this site.) II. A November 1 Beach Reporter
article said: Although [Mayor] Keegan
argues the tax will not bring in additional income, he
said if voters do not vote in favor the council's
decision, then the city would have to trim its funding
for Capital Improvement Projects, which includes street
improvements, and the city would also have to cut
staffing for the Police and Fire departments. Again, both of these "Yes on H"
claims are flatly untrue. For years the City has been
having large budget surpluses. In other words,
money is coming in faster than the City can spend
it! If we vote "no" on H and thereby let a small
portion of the tax go away, the City will simply have a
slightly smaller surplus. There will be no need to
cut services of any kind, and the money not sent to City Hall
(where they are just hoarding it in a bank account - see
bar chart below) will circulate in the private economy,
benefiting local businesses.
"Yes on H" has been trumpeting that all council candidates support Measure H, but it is no longer true. Candidate Jeff Duclos has moved from "undecided" to a "no" on Measure H.
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Successor Web Host of the [2001] Committee to Repeal the 6% Hermosa Beach Utility Users Tax |