San Luis Obispo is unique in that it is one of seven college towns in California and, among these college towns, San Luis Obispo has one of the highest ratio of students per capita in the State. There are approximately 22,000 relatively affluent Cal Poly and Cuesta College students residing in San Luis Obispo. These students cost the City additional community safety expenditures, 44% of the General Fund (see: http://slocity.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=16638), infrastructure and transportation expenditures,17% of the General Fund and community and neighborhood livability expenditures, 12% of the General Fund. Owing to the presence of these students, they and their families account for a large share of the City’s bed taxes (TOT’s) and sales taxes. Therefore, it is only logical that part of the City’s $8,900,000 annual budget shortfall should be made up by raising both the City’s bed taxes (per Council Member Rivoire’s suggestion) and sales taxes so that these taxes are more in line with the other six California college towns.

For the year 2016-17, SLO’s Transient Occupancy Fund brought in $7,186,000 (see page A1-14 @ http://slocity.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=15625). Note that four of the seven California college towns listed below charge more than 10%. Assessing a bed tax at the same level as Berkeley (12%) would bring in an additional $1,437,200 per year.

For the year 2016-17, SLO’s Sales Tax brought in $16,584,000. Note that five of the seven California college towns listed below charge significantly more than 7.75%. Assessing sales taxes at the same level as Davis (8.25%) would bring in an additional $1,069,935 per year.

These two increases would bring an additional $2,507,135 per year into the City coffers and this would represent 33% of the City’s budget shortfall. This comes close to your target 30% - 40% in new revenue sources for the $7.5 million share of the total budget shortfall.

Transient Occupancy Taxes For California Cities (Bold Type: University Towns)
“Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) For the privilege of occupancy in any hotel, each transient is subject to and shall pay a tax in the amount of _____ percent of the rent charged by the operator.”

City of Modesto 9%
City of San Diego 9%
City of San Luis Obispo 10%
City of Pismo Beach 10%
City of Morro Bay 10%
City of Arroyo Grande 10%
City of Atascadero 10%
City of Paso Robles 10%
City of Pacific Grove 10%
City of Ventura 10%
City of San Jose 10%
City of Chico 10%
City of Claremont 10%
City of Monterey 10.5%
City of Santa Cruz 11%
City of Berkeley 12%
City of Santa Barbara 12%
City of Mammoth Lakes 13%
City of Davis 14%
City of Los Angeles 14%
City of San Francisco 14%
City of Palo Alto 14%

Sales Taxes For California Cities (Bold Type: University Towns)

City of Chico 7.25%
City of San Diego 7.75%
City of Pismo Beach 7.75%
City of Morro Bay 7.75%
City of Arroyo Grande 7.75%
City of Atascadero 7.75%
City of Paso Robles 7.75%
City of San Luis Obispo 7.75%
City of Ventura 7.75%
City of Santa Barbara 7.75%
City of Mammoth Lakes 7.75%
City of Modesto 7.875%
City of Davis 8.25%
City of San Francisco 8.50%
City of Pacific Grove 8.75%
City of Monterey 8.75%
City of Santa Cruz 9.00%
City of Palo Alto 9.00%
City of San Jose 9.25%
City of Berkeley 9.25%
City of Claremont 9.50%
City of Los Angeles 9.75%

As for meeting the 30% - 40% operating cost reductions, it is clear that both City salaries and positions should be frozen if not reduced.

It is past time that this city, and other cities in California, live within our means. Burdening the future with millions of dollars of debt for "nice to do" things makes no sense. Things that "need" to be done include the Prado Road overpass and widening Tank Farm. A new Police station goes along with that too. Mission Plaza and Monterey street? Sure, in an ideal world it would be great to do these "nice to do" projects. But, how about we focus on the other important financial issues facing our community? What about the pensions we've committed to? It may not be fun but we as a community need to fund the CalPers system whether we like it or not. To start spending borrowed money to fix things that are not broken (Mission Plaza, for example) while ignoring the pension issue is not good governing. The pension issues will not solve themselves and need to be addressed. Thank you.

The City of San Luis Obispo was founded in1856. Dated and antiquated infrastructure in the 21st century will not meet the future needs of our community. The economic vitality and financial stability of our businesses, our citizens, our government, Cal Poly/Cuesta and our tourists need to be taken into consideration in this evaluation, assuring the needed infrastructure to remain relevant and financially viable in the decades ahead.

Too many communities in our state prefer to defer investing in their future, and kick the can down the road. It is human nature to ignore the future, when the current challenges seem daunting. Deferrals of solutions to community needs generally have bad outcomes, and in the long run, are more expensive to cure. At the same time, every community carries forward that year’s fiscal responsibilities. Many communities, unlike SLO, don’t offer community stakeholders the opportunity to share their insights regarding fiscal management; I am grateful that SLO welcomes this kind of citizen input.

While, yes, we do have fiscal challenges in our city, I firmly believe we cannot simultaneously ignore the future. The future loss of Diablo Canyon seems to bode loss for our economy; yet, we are growing a high-tech business community, with which SLO can build stronger alliances each year, and upon which SLO can plan and implement community projects. There is no free lunch; we plan and invest collaboratively overtime, doing our collaborative best to avoid large unintended consequences down the road.

A combination of sales tax dedicated increases, with long-term city bonds, and other prudent financial techniques is the right way to secure our future.

Our city is head over heels in debt to CalPERS, and yet you want to go on a spending spree for what are mostly "fluff" projects. Mission Plaza is fine as it is. As long as we owe CalPERS over $155 MILLION, we can never be sure any additional taxes will go where they are promised to go. You need to live within your means. People aren't leaving SLO because it's a mess, they are leaving because it is getting entirely too expensive to live here. Raising taxes only exacerbates this. Cut spending, pay down CalPERS, put the NEEDS (not wants) of residents first, and then figure it out. We are in this financial mess in part because you have catered to "wants" at the expense of needs. Grow a backbone and make tough decisions, to major on the majors. No new taxes. Period.

We live in a lovely City but there are too many people trying to over engineer the lifestyle here. If you don't have the funds to create a bike path, we are fine without a dedicated bike path through the city. If you can't afford to change the Mission Plaza, then leave it as is. Alternatively, sacrifice your habit of all new vehicles for City Staff or First Responder Vehicles and Double Decker buses that cost millions of dollars. Cities like SLO need to learn to live within a budget. You raised a "temporary sales tax" years back to meet your funding needs and it's never been repealed back as far as I can tell. So my feeling is NO!!!! No on raising taxes - Cut back on some other area in your budget and re prioritize your spending. That's what we as individual tax payers have to do!

I say fully fund your pension liabilities PRIOR to developing new projects and allowing and approving developments as rapidly as you are able WITHOUT consideration of the limits of available utilities such as WATER, ROADS and traffic overload. It would be seriously premature and not in the residents benefit to simply start raising the taxing of the residents to PROVIDE RESOURCES FOR NEW RESIDENTS. WE DO NOT WANT ANY NEW RESIDENTS until it can be shown that water, not money is sufficient to support the myriad dozens of developments this city is proposing. You are way out of line even considering raising taxes on property or sales (if that occurs, we will not shop in slo any longer) for future whatevers that are ill advised at this time. Stay within your budget, and FULLY FUND THE PRESENT SLO. And your current pension requirements. It is a travesty of the first water, to be so shortsighted as to propose to pump up your funding for the future. Where do you guys come up with this stuff?

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