DATE: April 6, 2016
TO: Council Budget & Finance Committee
FROM: City Manager
SUBJECT
Title
Continued Discussion of Potential Revenue Enhancement Strategies and Actions
End
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
That Council reads and comments on this report and provides staff direction on future revenue enhancement efforts.
Body
BACKGROUND
Through the course of various discussions, Council Committee members have agreed that exploring reasonable revenue enhancements was a critical part of meeting the future resource needs of the municipal organization; and they have periodically identified some possibilities. The last direct discussion was on November 4, 2015. Some actions such as the renewal of Measure A (UUT) rose immediately to the top and are already under way. Some supporting policies have already been implemented such as identifying a base for Real Property Transfer Tax and targeting anything above that for Economic Development or one-time costs. Still other ideas and actions warrant further discussion and decisions as to what to bring forward to the full Council.
With this report, staff is attempting to further the conversation and to present some prioritization of ideas and actions for the Committee's discussion and consideration. Hopefully, some "next steps" will develop from the conversation to guide staff's efforts in this arena.
DISCUSSION
Per Propositions 218 and 26, taxes and fees fall into the following categories: a) special taxes, which require two-thirds approval of voters and go into restricted accounts; b) general taxes, which require simple majority approval of voters and go into the General Fund; and, 3) fees approved by the Council and go into the fund from which the service is funded, but which must be supported by studies and off-set the actual costs of delivering those services. Other forms of raising revenue include bonded indebtedness to support large capital projects such as a ...
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