ESCONDIDO — The Escondido City Council agreed to send a citizen-led, one-cent sales tax increase initiative for the city to the November ballot during its July 10 meeting.
If voters approve, the city’s sales tax rate will see a hike of one cent on the dollar, or 1%, bumping the city’s current rate to 8.75% for the next 20 years.
The sales tax revenue would be used primarily for public safety, increased police, fire and paramedic services, addressing homelessness, improving streets, sidewalks and other infrastructure, reducing traffic congestion, and maintaining parks, trails and open space.
A coalition of police, firefighters, city employees and local business owners banded together at the beginning of the year to get the one-cent sales tax on the November ballot. For the next several months, the group collected thousands of signatures from Escondido residents who supported the ballot measure.
The coalition delivered approximately 11,898 signatures to the city clerk’s office on May 31.
According to City Clerk Zack Beck, he noted the coalition had made an effort to avoid duplicates or invalid signatures during his prima facie count of the signatures in early June.
The sales tax measure needs 7,748 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Beck submitted the signatures to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, which determined that based on the sample size, the signatures had a 74% validation rate; however, that rate was reduced to a weighted 65% when the Registrar of Voters found two duplicate signatures.
Beck requested the Registrar of Voters conduct a full count of the signatures on June 19. However, the deadline to complete the count isn’t until Oct. 8. Meanwhile, the city has an Aug. 9 deadline to submit the ballot measure in time for the November election.
Because of the time constraints and confidence that the measure will qualify, staff recommended that the City Council approve putting it on the ballot despite the full count deadline.
“Time is of the essence,” said Councilmember Mike Morasco.
The city has faced an ongoing structural budget deficit in its general fund for the last few years, having also closed a $11.3 million budget shortfall in the last two years.
Without a significant increase in revenues, the city’s reserve funds and one-time funding resources will be gone by 2030, which could result in deep cuts to city services.
Putting the sales tax on the November ballot will cost the city between $150,000 and $200,000.
While Councilmember Consuelo Martinez ultimately supported the initiative, she noted some changes she would have liked to see — including removing police and fire from the advisory board due to what she felt was a conflict of interest because the city would be receiving the funds to benefit the two departments, and improving how the signature collection process was handled.
“We could have done better,” she said.
Martinez also would have preferred the City Council to implement the initiative instead of the coalition.
Most Escondido voters previously denied a city-proposed ¾-cent sales tax measure in 2022.
