On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider placing on the November ballot a parcel tax to fund the creation and maintenance of new and existing parks and recreational facilities.
Though this sounds mostly innocuous, what is at stake is a potential tax hike of hundreds of millions of dollars.
At issue is the need to find an ongoing funding source to support the Los Angeles County Regional Park & Open Space District, which has administered the funding of more than $1 billion in grants to projects throughout the county.
In 1992 and 1996, voters approved the creation of the RPOSD, along with two assessments, which combined have raised approximately $80 million in revenues annually to support parks. The 1992 assessment, which amounted to approximately $12.50 a year for a single-family home, expired in 2015. The 1996 assessment, averaging about $6.78 per single-family home, is set to expire in 2019.
According to the nonprofit The Trust for Public Land, the county could impose a flat $34 per parcel tax and raise $80 million, which would essentially replace the revenue stream that the RPOSD effectively operated with for decades.
But that’s not what the Board of Supervisors is interested in. The leading proposals under consideration are 3- and 5-cent per square foot parcel taxes. Under either proposal, property owners can reasonably expect to pay more than before. According to The Trust for Public Land, the 3- or 5-cent tax could cost a typical homeowner $45 or $75 per year.
The lower of the two proposals is estimated to generate annual revenue of $189 million, while the higher end proposal is estimated to yield $309 million annually. In other words, the county is now considering tax hikes which would more than double or quadruple funding.
It is imperative that any such funding measure be the topic of open dialogue and that any such discussions be motivated by something other than a desire to simply raise as much money as possible.
After all, in 2014, the county proposed Proposition P, a flat $23 parcel tax. The measure was notably far from transparent, as it was proposed without a needs assessment or a clear set of priorities for using the revenues. It was narrowly rejected by voters.
This time, the county is returning after having done a little bit more work, including producing a needs assessment that claims the county has $8.8 billion in priority projects plus $12 billion in deferred maintenance to catch up on.
On May 3, John Wicker, director of the county’s parks and recreation department, told the supervisors there has been a robust “engagement process that involved the public, cities, unincorporated communities, community-based organizations and other stakeholders.”
But at least one critical set of stakeholders hasn’t been properly engaged: the business community. BizFed, the Los Angeles County Businesses Federation, has argued the existing set of proposals would constitute a costly burden on businesses. And worse, that the county has failed to work with businesses to strike a more reasonable solution to parks funding.
Rather than rush to put such a costly tax on the ballot, we urge the Board of Supervisors to take the time to develop a less onerous proposal.
