Measure J Seeks To Extend 1% City Sales Tax Increase In Palm Springs

When Palm Springs voters initially approved a 1% sales tax increase in 2011, they did so with the understanding that the increase would automatically end in 2037. But now, the city is going back to the voters to ask for that sunset date to be removed.

“When it was originally started, it was designed to be limited to a 25-year measure, and I think the primary reason was they thought it would be easier to pass,” Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein said in an interview with The Riverside Record. “What’s happened now is the residents and the businesses have seen the tremendous benefit of it.”

The primary purpose of the tax when it was first presented to the voters was to help fund the city’s downtown revitalization plan and support other community projects, which Bernstein said has been “tremendously successful” in terms of increasing the city’s revenue through property taxes and transient occupancy taxes.

Now, with a number of large infrastructure projects in the works — the library renovation, the relocation of the downtown fire station and upgrades to the city’s convention center — Bernstein said the city needs to be able to continue to leverage Measure J funds to be able to finance those plans.

“For each of these, we basically need to look at bond measures that are not public bond measures, but financing measures, and Measure J would be the financing tool,” he said. “So in order to get a 30-year mortgage, so to speak, or 30-year bond, we need to know that Measure J will be around for more than another 12 years.”

For the current fiscal year, the city is expecting to generate approximately $22 million in general fund revenue from Measure J, according to an impartial analysis of the measure by City Attorney Jeffrey S. Ballinger that appeared in the Riverside County voter information guide. Bernstein said the tax has come to represent roughly 12% of the city’s annual budget.

“It doesn’t take much for anyone to realize, ‘Well, if we lose this, if our budget gets cut 10% or 12%, everything will hurt,’” he said, noting that almost all of the city’s sales tax revenue comes from tourists.

Funds generated from the tax will continue to go to the city’s general fund, which allows them to be used for any legal city expenditure such as expanding police and fire services, maintaining and improving public infrastructure, supporting community non-profit organizations and improving the city’s library.

“This is one of those taxes where the benefits are immediately and visibly apparent,” Bernstein said. “Whether that is our downtown or streets being paved or a playground opening or new lighting at our ball fields, the residents can see that, and they know that this is from Measure J.”

As for opposition to the measure, there were no official arguments submitted either for or against the measure and Bernstein said there hasn’t really been any up to this point, which he said he thinks “indicates a real understanding of what it’s all about.”

When it comes to the spending of Measure J funds, the city has a citizens oversight committee that reviews all expenditures and makes resident recommendations to the council, Bernstein said. The city also conducts an annual audit of the funds that includes a very clear accounting of what Measure J funds are used for in the city.

“That kind of transparency is something that the residents really appreciate,” he said.

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.