Eye on Sacramento Will Hold a Press Conference at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday
to Present its Report on the Spending of Measure A Transportation Taxes and
its Implications for the Proposed Measure B Transportation Sales Tax Hike
On November 8th Sacramento County voters will pass judgment on Measure B, a proposal that would double the current Measure A countywide, transportation sales tax from ½% percent to a full 1 percent. Sacramento taxpayers have paid an eye-popping $669.5 million dollars in taxes under Measure A since it went into effect in 2009.
When: Tuesday, September 6, 2016 at 10:00 a.m.
Where: Light Rail Station on Richards Blvd. at N. 17th St.
Who: Professor Gregory L. Thompson and Ms. Debra Desrosiers,
Authors of the EOS Report, and Craig Powell, EOS President
Eye on Sacramento believes that Sacramento voters deserve to know how well their Measure A taxes have been spent before deciding whether a doubling of the current tax is warranted. Have local authorities been prudent and responsible? Or have they been wasteful and been pursuing the wrong priorities.
Measure A provides substantial funding to Sacramento Regional Transit, as well as money to local governments for roads maintenance and construction, traffic control and safety, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Measure B requires a 2/3rds majority vote for approval.
The report reveals an extensive pattern of waste, misuse and misplaced priorities in Regional Transit’s spending of Measure A funds. The report also reveals that local officials have been leveraging Measure A tax revenues to borrow massive sums on imprudent terms that will needlessly waste more than $52 million of taxpayer funds and will likely divert over $350 million of Measure A funds away from road maintenance, Regional Transit operations, and road and transit construction projects to pay for bond interest.
The principal author of the EOS report, Professor Gregory L. Thompson, chairs EOS’s Transportation Committee and is recently retired from the faculty of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning Faculty at Florida State University. The EOS report co-author, Debra Desrosiers, is EOS’s Vice-President – Government Oversight.
