Sandag Seeks OK for Vote on Increase in Sales Tax

The San Diego Assn. of Governments board voted Friday to seek legislation that would enable it to ask county voters for a sales tax increase to help fund transportation projects.

The proposal, conceived by Sandag’s Transportation Advisory Committee, asks the state Legislature to give the advisory agency authority to sponsor a ballot measure calling for a sales tax increase of as much as 1%. The additional revenue would be divided among road construction and repair, San Diego Transit and the San Diego Trolley, with Sandag having discretion over spending.

According to the committee’s report, a sales tax increase is necessary to help alleviate the $3.2-billion shortage in transportation funding the county will face by 2005. A sales tax increase of 0.5% --such as that enacted by Los Angeles County voters in 1980--would generate more than $34 million a year in San Diego County.

“Looking at the shortfall and looking at the funding sources, the only one that provided anywhere near the funding we need is an increase in sales tax,” said San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma, chairman of the Transportation Advisory Committee.

Struiksma stressed that Sandag is not planning to put a referendum calling for a sales tax increase on the ballot in the near future, but that the legislation would provide the agency with a “vehicle” to generate funding locally.

To gain the authority to author such a tax proposal, Struiksma has asked State Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) to add the Sandag proposal to a bill dealing with Metropolitan Transit Development Board contracts.

“They said they would like to see us amend that bill to give (Sandag) the authority--not to raise taxes --but to go to the people and ask for a tax increase,” Deddeh said Friday from his district office. “I have no problem with that . . . but I told him I would like to see Sandag get the signatures of the whole San Diego (legislative) delegation (on the amendment).”

It may be difficult for Sandag to get that unanimous approval. Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) said Friday he is leery about adding his support.

“Of course they want the support of the whole delegation; any time you’re fronting a tax increase, you want as many co-conspirators as possible,” Stirling said.

Deddeh emphasized that the amended bill would not necessarily be a tax-increase measure.

“Nobody’s trying to raise anybody’s taxes,” he said. “Right now, if the people of San Diego County wanted to tax themselves to pay for street repairs or public transit, they wouldn’t be able to do it. This (bill) would allow them to do that.”

Under the current proposal, the members of Sandag would also sit as the San Diego Regional Transportation Commission. Unlike Sandag proper, this new commission would have the authority to seek tax increases and designate where the additional revenue would be spent. And being a new taxing agency, the commission would only need the support of a simple majority of the county’s voters to enact a tax increase, instead of the two-thirds approval mandated by Proposition 13.

“They’re trying to figure out a mechanism to take advantage of that provision,” Stirling said. “There’s a question of whether the governor would sign a bill like that.”

A recent Sandag survey indicated that the majority of county residents would support a tax increase to expand public transit. However, transportation-related tax increases do not have a good track record statewide.

In 1982, pre-election polls showed 63% of San Diego County voters favoring a 2-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax to pay for road and highway repairs. But on Election Day, the measure was rejected by 62% of the voters. Over the last 22 years, 19 proposed increases in sales or gasoline taxes have appeared on ballots statewide. Only five have passed.

Struiksma said the revenue provided by a sales tax increase would be vital, in part because state and federal agencies are more willing to fund projects in which federal aid is augmented by local money. However, Stirling said a tax increase would be asking the public to pay for policy makers’ fiscal irresponsibility.

“They’ve spent the public’s money on projects that were wasteful and inefficient,” he said. “Now the roads are deteriorating, and they’re facing the dilemma of telling the public they’ve misallocated their resources and they want (voters) to bail them out with a tax increase.”

Deddeh said that adding the Sandag rider to SB 361, which will go before the Senate Transportation Committee May 21, will be “no big deal” and that he expects little or no opposition in the Legislature.

“If all sides are go, we may not even have to amend it on the Senate side to keep the vehicle going; we can wait and amend it on the Assembly side,” Deddeh said.

Times staff writer Kenneth F. Bunting contributed to this story.