Measure G Seeks To Increase Sales Tax Rate By 1% In Palm Desert

Voters in Palm Desert will decide whether or not the city will be allowed to increase its sales tax rate this Election Day.

“We recognize we genuinely and deeply need more funds for infrastructure, for parks and for public safety,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jan Harnik in an interview with The Riverside Record.

According to Harnik, the city first started talking about the need for additional infrastructure projects needed to support the north end of the city when Acrisure Arena was being built back in 2022. Since then, Harnik said those conversations have only increased as housing projects have been approved and come online in that part of the city. 

That coupled with the prolonged impacts of the Covid pandemic and the impact of Tropical Storm Hilary last August, Harnik said it became clear that the city needed to find a way to bring in more revenue to address these issues.

“Those kinds of things all came together at once, and it was like, ‘We don’t have a choice,’” she said. “We just don’t have a choice.”

If approved by a majority of voters, Measure G would allow the city council to adopt a 1% increase to its sales tax, bringing the city’s rate to 8.75% and generating an estimated $25 million annually in additional revenue, all of which will go directly to the city of Palm Desert.

The additional funding will go to the city’s general fund, but the 5-year spending plan and priorities shows a list of nine projects that could be funded using Measure G funds, including the construction and staffing of a new fire station in the northern part of the city, increasing the number of sheriff’s deputies in the community, maintaining and improving the city’s stormwater infrastructure network, constructing and staffing the Palm Desert Library, establishing a park in the city’s north end and improving the city’s financial reserves so it is able to quickly respond to situations like Tropical Storm Hilary and the Covid pandemic in the future.

“Measure G is a response to make sure the quality of living is there,” Harnik said.

But in their official argument and rebuttal against the measure that can be found in the Riverside County voter information guide, city council candidates Gregg Akkerman and Stephen Nelson argue that the city’s budget shortfall is due to poor financial management and that there will be no real oversight for the use of Measure G funds.

Also speaking out against Measure P is Mayor Karina Quintanilla, who is running for reelection to her District 1 seat. In a video posted to her Facebook page urging voters to vote against the measure, she brought up a 2011 report from the California State Controller that found the Palm Desert Redevelopment Agency allocated $16.7 million for projects related to the Desert Willow Golf Resort, some of which the report found was used improperly to cover the cost of “normal maintenance or other improvement of publicly owned facilities.”

“There are current leaders on the council that supported using that money for Desert Willow,” she said in the video. “You deserve leaders that are responsible with the money that you generate.”

The Palm Desert Redevelopment Agency was dissolved in 2012 as a result of state law, and a successor agency was created.

In tying that back to Measure G, Quintanilla said that the way the measure was presented to the voters offered no oversight. Just as Akkerman and Nelson did in their official argument against the measure, Quintanilla ended her video saying that now is “not the right time.”

“I care that your money is being spent where it’s intended, where it’s needed, because I care that the city runs efficiently,” she said. “I care that we do this right, and we need to wait.”

Harnik, who noted that Quintanilla previously supported putting the measure on the ballot, pointed out that the city is routinely recognized for how it handles its finances and posts all of the budget information on the city’s website for the public to examine and has a Citizens Finance Committee that meetings regularly to discuss the city’s financial situation and reviews how the city’s money is being spent.

“We’ve always been so proud of how we have managed money, and we’ve always gotten awards from the state auditor for fiscal responsibility,” she said. “I mean, we get it every year, and we’re so transparent.”

And while Measure G is a sales tax, Harnik said the vast majority of the money generated is not expected to come from Palm Desert residents, but tourists and visitors.

“Seventy percent of those purchases that are impacted by Measure G are actually purchases made by our visitors,” she said. “They take a lot of the pressure off of that. So, 30% is by our residents and 70% is by visitors.”

Sales tax, in general, does not apply to most food items bought at grocery stores, prescription medicine or certain medical devices, utilities, rent and items purchased with CalFresh benefits. For those items that it does apply to, such as clothing, Measure G would increase the cost of a $100 pair of shoes by $1.

Those who have not yet cast their vote have three options to do so. They can drop off their signed vote-by-mail ballot at a secure ballot drop box, vote in person at a vote center, or mail their signed vote-by-mail ballot through the United States Postal Service.