TUTOC Report
Fiscal Year 2023-24
pandemic years, staff shortages, uncertainty about ongoing revenues and challenges with supply chains significantly reduced spending of Measure “G” on streets infrastructure for several years.
Total City Spending for Streets and Public Safety
Despite the limitations in Measure “G” revenue, in FY 2023-24, the City spent a total of $4.77 million on street maintenance and improvements and $7.38 million on public safety. For FY 2024- 25, the City has budgeted a total of $5.3 million for street improvement projects and $8.2 million for public safety.
Committee Recommendation of Future General Fund Expenditures
1. Reviewing the 10-year average ratio of actual expenditures from Measure “G” spent on Streets (41 percent) versus Public Safety (59 percent), the Committee recommends that the City continue to make efforts towards shifting the ratio back to closer to two-thirds for Streets and one-third for Public Safety. The Committee acknowledged that flexibility from year to year is important in allocating the resources and does not recommend any action that would reduce the number of police officers or significantly impact public safety, but felt it was important that the City stay close to the promise made to voters in 2008.
Consistent with progressing closer to the two-thirds and one-third split, the FY 2024-25 budget allocated $2,557,313 to paving projects and included approximately $475,351 of funds, unspent in FY 2023-24 and carried forward to the FY 2024-25 budget. The resulting ratio for FY 2024-25 budget is 92 percent for streets and 8 percent or $217,487 for Public Safety, this allocation will adjust the ongoing spending ratio closer to the 2008 promise to voters. This expenditure in FY 2024-25 is primarily to help fund completion of the Old Arcata Road project.
2. The Committee continues to support investing in the safety of the City’s streets, sidewalks and bike lanes by complying with the Complete Streets Policy adopted by the City Council on May 18, 2022. Complete Streets are streets designed and operated to enable safe use and support mobility for all users. Those include people of all ages and abilities, regardless of whether they are travelling as drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, or public transportation riders. While the Committee will defer to staff to make specific recommendations to the City Council on which projects to spend the Measure “G” funds, they do recommend shifting the expenditure ratio to two-thirds on street improvements and one-third on public safety.
3. With the expected certification of the City’s additional ¾ Cent Measure “H” Transactions and Use Tax (TUT), the Committee recommends that the City Council extend the TUTOC’s duties to include oversight of the Measure “H” expenditures and reporting.
Collection of Measure “H”, after confirmation of the election results, should begin April 1, 2025. Sales tax payments for April 2025, will not be received by Arcata until the end of June 2025. During the next six months, the TUTOC recommends that the City Council engage the TUTOC to develop recommendations for oversight, accountability and reporting to meet the expectations of Arcata’s voters who passed Measure “H”.
TUTOC Report
Fiscal Year 2023-24
The Committee highlights this information because it is important for the Council to remain aware during the budget process that while the TUT is a general use tax, the original promise of Measure “G” was to support Public safety and Streets infrastructure. The Council and staff need to ensure TUT monies are used for those purposes because it is the reason the ballot measure was successful in 2008, and will support its extension beyond 2028, when Measure “G” expires. Further, with the passage of Measure “H”, the Committee feels strongly that the promises made regarding the use and accountability of those funds should be honored in order to ensure continued trust in the City’s leadership.
Conclusion
Since the inception of the Transaction and Use Tax in 2008, the funds have had a significant and positive impact on the City.