Editorial: There will be a daunting number of tax and bond initiatives on November’s ballot. Here’s how to weigh good and bad

For California voters, last week’s news out of Sacramento was grim, or at least daunting: There will be 17 or more state measures on the Nov. 8 ballot, including a referendum and 14 initiatives that qualified through the signature-gathering process. The Legislature is referring two measures to voters and may add more after it returns from summer recess.

But that’s just the state portion of the ballot. Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Transportation Authority is seeking a sales tax increase. The county Board of Supervisors may decide Tuesday whether to ask for a parcel tax for parks and open space, and perhaps a charter amendment to grant subpoena power to a sheriff oversight commission. The Los Angeles City Council wants approval of a housing bond to address homelessness.

Only a portion of the November measures seek approval for bonds or new taxes, but they raise vexing questions. For example, if the Legislature decides in August to go forward with a parks bond, would that reduce the need for the county parks tax? If the county adds taxes for homeless services, does that make the city homeless bond less necessary — or more useful?

The last time so many revenue measures were put to L.A. voters all at once was in 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected president. The Great Recession had begun and the state budget was in crisis, but much of the California electorate was either still in denial or looking forward to better economic times. Obama’s candidacy had energized new, optimistic voters. Politicians and pollsters saw a rare window of time to win approval of bonds and taxes.

That November, voters said yes to high-speed rail bonds, yes to veteran home-loan bonds, yes to children’s hospital bonds, yes to a Los Angeles Unified School District bond, yes to an L.A. Community College District bond and yes to a Metro sales tax. They came very close to saying yes to a parcel tax for city youth and gang services but the measure fell just short of the needed two-thirds.

Then the window closed. California found itself with a $41.6-billion budget shortfall, and the Legislature brokered a deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to set a special May 2009 election seeking a variety of bailouts, including temporary increases in sales and income taxes. Voters were no longer in so agreeable a mood and said no to everything.

So how have those 2008 bonds and taxes worked out? It depends on your point of view. High-speed rail is either a boondoggle or a visionary (although struggling) bet on the future. The veteran bonds have been repurposed to shift money into more urgently needed rental housing and services. A portion of the LAUSD bond was spent on the controversial iPads for students program. The Community College District bond funded a construction program mired in fraud, waste and mismanagement.

Still, voters cannot simply say “no” to every bond or tax in the belief that government will mismanage the revenue. The infrastructure that makes good health, public safety and commerce possible, the programs that raise living standards and support a decent quality of life, even democracy, justice and liberty — they all cost money and all require an investment. Consider for example the costs to society of homelessness, in terms of not just the misery of those on the street, but also property values, the economy and the demands on the police, fire, health and sanitation services that the rest us pay for and rely on. Paying to fix that problem could well save money in the long run.

But the voters who say yes or no and the taxpayers who pay have every right to demand high standards from government, which in turn has a duty to learn from past mistakes and bring forward increasingly more responsible, and supportable, tax and bond measures.

Attributes of such measures include independent oversight of funds to ensure they are spent the way voters intended. But oversight must be real and not simply rote. The community college bond had an oversight panel that failed to stop poor spending and management practices. It falls to backers of any new bond to explain how their oversight is different and will be more effective.

Bonds have limited lifespans but a new tax can go on forever unless it’s enacted with a sunset clause that ends the levy after a period of years and allows the next generation of voters to decide whether to renew it. Sunsets focus politicians and administrators on getting the job done within a set period; yet they may not be appropriate for taxes that are intended to pay for ongoing programs and maintenance. Voters should expect the backers of any new tax to either include a sunset or justify its absence.

They also should expect their elected leaders to clearly explain why government needs more money to do what voters want it to do.

Requests for new revenue should fall in line with clearly articulated and understood priorities. A voter’s only choice is to say “yes” or “no” to each proposed tax or bond measure, but in reality, deciding each one independently of the others is a little like going to the store without a grocery list or a budget and deciding to pull each item off the shelf without comparing them. Ballot measures are too often drawn up in response to polls that simply want to know whether voters will buy any given product. Voters should be savvy shoppers and demand that politicians explain why each item is needed, why it’s needed now, and how the purchase fits into a larger picture of wants, needs and costs.

Bond and tax backers should expect to present benchmarks and evaluations. For example, how many parks will be built, and by when? How many people will be served, and how? What corrective action will be built into the measure in case performance falls short?

Especially with local measures, voters should be wary of programs shaped out of public view and then presented as take-it-or-leave-it propositions. If officials expect votes, they should also expect to shape their requests with ample public outreach and input.

Los Angeles, the region, the state — they all have many needs and require lots of money. Voters should be unwilling to waste it, but ready to pay for cost-effective infrastructure, programs and services that will improve life. Backers of bonds and taxes are asking for money. They have an obligation to give voters something worthy of support.

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