Dublin May Levy New Tax Against Residents
Tax freedom day may start coming a few days later for Dublin residents as the Dublin City Council is looking to possibly levy a new city tax against residents to help pay for municipal services. The Council voted this past Tuesday to hire consulting firm Lew Edwards Group to:
- Conduct a survey to gauge interest in levying the new tax on Dublin residents;
- Get the tax measure on the November 2010 ballot; and
- Campaign to rally supporters and voters in favor of the tax.
The City of Dublin is looking to create this new tax to help off-set the doubling of fire and police services costs in the past 7 years, reduced development impact fees, and lower sales and property tax revenues.
The Lew Edwards Group will survey up to 400 likely voters by the end of the year. If the survey results are favorable, the tax measure will be placed on the November 2010 ballot and City Hall will campaign for the new tax with direct mailings, press releases, and op ed pieces.
It isn’t clear at this point if the new tax being considered would be an income-based tax, a fixed tax amount, or a parcel tax. As with many new taxes requiring voter approval, there would likely be some groups of residents that would receive exemptions based on age, disability, and/or income level.
Would you be in favor of paying a new tax? If not, what services can be cut (e.g., administration, parks, police, fire, public works)?
For reference, this database contains a listing of the compensation paid to all Dublin City employees and Alameda County employees last year. Additionally, this is a link to Dublin’s annual city budget.
12:09 AM on October 21st, 2009
No new taxes. Cut administration and public art.
12:40 AM on October 21st, 2009
No way. This will not pass – I’d say they should not bother wasting time and money on the consulting firm to do the analysis. People are sick and tired of ruthless government spending at city, county, state and federal levels. Cut the pencil pushers at the desks instead of the workers in the field (teachers, firemen, police, etc.).
12:44 AM on October 21st, 2009
I checked the highly paid jobs in Dublin (total>100K). A lot of them are useless administrative jobs. We need to cut some of them. We need to use more ITs to improve the efficiency for the administrative functions so we can cut these jobs.
We need to keep or increase police and fire officers.
I noticed that our Mayor was only paid $9000 in 2008. We need to increase that.
8:56 PM on October 27th, 2009
The reason the mayor only makes $9000 a year is because it is a part-time position and the City of Dublin doesn’t have a Mayor-Council form of government, but a Council-Manager form of government. The City Manager is hired by the council to perform many of the executive duties of the city. It’s hard to have an intelligent conversation about what will or won’t work when people don’t understand the basics of how the government works.
12:44 AM on October 21st, 2009
Besides, how is covering up for a loss of taxes in sales and property by imposing more taxes work? The reason for lower sales and property taxes is the downturn, and taxing the folks who have a little left is an insult to injury. They should plan their budgets to account for downturns. If I were to run my household like this, my family would be in homeless shelter within weeks of losing a part of my income.
6:04 AM on October 21st, 2009
No new taxes. Cut all services. In fact, go back to letting the county run everything and fire all city employees. I have weapons. I don’t need police protection. No new taxes. I can live with potholes and slower fire service. No new taxes. I’m tired of paying for public salaries. I’m tired of paying to educate all your rugrats. If you want better funded schools and public services then go to some other more affluent community, but as far as Dublin goes…NO NEW TAXES.
6:51 AM on October 21st, 2009
Hi Anonymous – that’s pretty funny. Thanks for lightening things up so early in the morning.
Thx, John Z.
10:23 AM on October 21st, 2009
don’t worry. like john said as with many new taxes requiring voter approval, there would likely be some groups of residents that would receive exemptions. I think you may fall into one of those categories.
10:14 AM on October 21st, 2009
I don’t get how the talk of a new tax would help the city now. By the time you get the approval (if that happens) and revenue start flowing in, it’ll be 2011. By then the downturn might already be over.
10:27 AM on October 21st, 2009
I’m absolutely opposed to paying more taxes to fund the exorbitant salaries, pensions and lifetime health benefits being given to public employees and their dependents. It’s time for supply & demand and the competitive market to dictate public employee compensation. Public districts, agencies and governments can no longer legitimately make the worn out claim that they have to pay such high salaries to attract and retain quality personnel. Just as one example, if Dublin announced that they were looking to fill a new firefighter position, I’ll wager they would get thousands of applicants. When firefighters & police officers can retire at age 50 on almost full salary and lifetime health benefits for themselves and their families, it’s no wonder so many people would give almost anything to get those jobs. That’s not supply & demand. That’s a price-fixing monopoly. They could pay much lower salaries and still attract many, many high quality, motivated candidates. And it’s not just the fire protection agency, it’s true of all branches of local government. (Don’t even get me started on state and federal government salaries!) Take a quick look in the compensation database to see the salaries that the City of Dublin pays for its staff positions, many of which do not require a college education. And that’s not even counting the various benefits and the most-likely overly generous pension packages that have not been disclosed. It’s not that those employees don’t work hard. I’m sure they do. But everyone works hard. Now that transparency is beginning to bring public employee compensation out into the light of day, taxpayers are no longer going to sign blank checks to enrich those fortunate members of the exclusive public employee club, not even a bleeding-heart liberal like me who, to the best of my recollection, has never voted against a local school, park, or municipal tax increase. I haven’t had a raise in three years because of the recession, and my monthly payroll deduction for health insurance has almost doubled during that time. It’s time for everyone to share in the sacrifice, even cloistered government employees. I’m all for paying to improve schools, increase teacher salaries, fill potholes, acquire more park lands, etc. But I’ll no longer fork up the money to pay the unreasonable salaries of administrators and overhead personnel, nor higher salaries to ANY government worker than the market dictates, at least not without putting up a fight. The buck stops here!
Jake
11:15 AM on October 21st, 2009
Totally agree with you! You need to stop siding with government employee unions to vote for Democrats:-)
12:12 PM on October 21st, 2009
Amen Jake, these public “servants” are ripping us off with their huge pensions and overtime pay that would bankrupt any private company. The public needs to be aware of why our budgets are all out of whack—
12:53 PM on October 21st, 2009
Well put. Ditto.
12:36 PM on October 21st, 2009
Good post Jake!
NO NEW TAXES!
2:46 PM on October 21st, 2009
We need to live within our means and so does our community.
10:20 PM on October 21st, 2009
I will offer my free services for 2 hours every day as long as it takes to review all Dublin city structure, operations, salary and pension plans and any thing else that is necessary to reduce the unnecessary spending, improve city income and optimize/cut unnecessary processes.
But I do not want to pay any new taxes.
9:02 AM on October 22nd, 2009
I can already tell you what the survey results will look like based on the small sample size of 14 people (15 including me) that posted here so far, hehe. That is unless the Group will be cherry picking their survey respondents to have a favorable outcome for the city, instead of a random survey.
9:39 PM on October 24th, 2009
Let’s take it one step further, NO PENSIONS!
“Doubling of the costs in the past 7 years?”
Let’s address that one before you come after the taxpayers.
No way this one passes. No way…
6:57 AM on October 25th, 2009
New taxes…are you kidding.
Our government (all branches) runs perversely opposite of society in general
Here are a couple of analogies if the real businesses run like government
General Motors – As sales slow down – GM management doubles the costs of cars to make up for the shortfall – results – customers (the taxpayer in my analogy
) flock into the showrooms to take advantage of the new pricing…smiles all around! NOT
Local Daycare Centers – families are hurting so enrollment in local daycare center is shrinking – Reaction from owners – shorten hours and increase staff pay – the stress of not having enough kids needs to be remedied with a little higher salary…extra staff is required to keep the existing staff company because of the reduced enrollment.
Dublin Ranch Golf Course – Golfers just can’t afford to golf right now so tee sheets are very light. Reaction – Dublin Ranch levies a “one time” parcel tax fill the gaps in DRGC’s. Golfer’s are only allowed to use every other hole – this saves maintenance costs for the course. Bright Note – All golfer handicaps are mysteriously lowered!!
NOTE – CITY OF DUBLIN – CUT THE FAT NOW – GOOD TIMES WILL BE HERE AGAIN AND YOU CAN RAISE OUR TAXES THEN!
10:59 PM on October 31st, 2009
Sorry, but what planet are they on that they think MORE taxes are good in an economic downturn? And why would you pay a company to “study” the issue. For crying out loud — will someone please teach them how to work Surveymonkey? It’s free. I can guarantee that we already know the answer to this question and it’s a waste of time to put it on the ballot. Save the trees.
Puhleez…
8:11 AM on November 2nd, 2009
If they would like to raise taxes, I propose that the City of Dublin upgrade the quality of services offered. One difference I have noticed between Dublin and the neighboring Tri-valley cities is that Dublin seems to contract out many of its services (MCE seems to be of mediocre quality). I happen to know many people in city government in the Tri-valley, and one common feature they share is that they also live in the communities in which they serve – contrast this with the City of Dublin where a much smaller percentage of city workers (and contractors)actually reside in Dublin (many prefer San Ramon or Pleasanton). Combine this with heavy reliance on subcontracting services, and the result is that our city workforce does not have stake in the community. This means that they are less likely to be passionate about serving the citizenry of Dublin, and will not care if we pay more taxes to support substandard services.
I hate to bring up something to which some readers of this blog might take offense, but if we want Dublin to elevate its status in the Tri-valley and progress beyond its image as the “stepchild” of this region, then we need to model ourselves more closely with San Ramon and Pleasanton. This means internalizing our workforce to foster community pride in the people providing our services, providing incentives for large companies that provide professional level jobs to locate in Dublin (instead of more low paying retail and restaurant jobs), and developing in the right way (essentially, more single family homes, lower density, and less apartments and condos). I believe in this community, and I think Dublin has the potential to become a great city. We just need to wake up, look around us, and see what has worked well for our neighbors.
10:41 AM on November 2nd, 2009
Just read the crime report for San Ramon. It is even worse than Dublin for October. How can you claim their service is better than ours?
Their schools are better than ours, but they charge much higher property tax (0.5% higher than ours). I am all for slightly higher property tax to improve our schools, especially high school.
10:56 AM on November 2nd, 2009
Hi Anonymous – I believe that the Mello-Roos tax district in San Ramon only applies to the newer Windemere community. Are there any Realtors that could confirm?
Cheers, John Z.