Members - six cities responded to my inquiry re: sharing sales taxes with your County. The responses follow. If, by chance, you did not respond but would like to share your situation, please forward your responses to me and I will update the list. Thank you to all who responded. Steve Kroeger Director of Administrative Services City of Yuba City 530.822.4620 Paso Robles Negotiating tax sharing agreements w/county for annexations is as you are aware a frustrating experience. Since they are more or less in the drivers seat, their degree of cooperation and willingness to cooperate is virtually non-existent. Fortunately, our more valuable annexations, commercial/retail zoned properties, have resulted in an agreement wherein the County gets the property tax and the city gets ALL the sales taxes. Since our normal proportional share of property taxes is so small to begin with, our Council feels this is a good deal. Santa Barbara The City of Santa Barbara is proposing the annexation of a large urbanized section of the County, and will be entering negotiations for a master tax exchange agreement within a few months. We would be very interested in any samples you might have or receive as a result of this survey. Clovis What is the percent shared? 5% Do you share existing sales tax, new sales tax, or both? Both What did your city get "in return" (e.g., increased property tax share) We got agreement on new sphere line. Was the exchange the result of a consultant's study or otherwise? Political negotiations. Do you regret the exchange, or feel that it has been beneficial? Since we were able to continue to grow it was beneficial, however, it has been expensive. We are currently sharing about $500,000. Also, since the Co. beat us up over the last sphere line they are holding out for more money for our new sphere. For the sphere negotiations Fresno Co. had a study done that showed Clovis as net cost to the County. After review of their analysis it was clear that they weren't including all applicable revenue. So we had our own study done. After including revenue to the County, such as Motor Vehicle In-Lieu and a few other "state" revenues, we suddenly went from a net taker to a net giver. Napa City of Napa shared 15% and then 5% (of the 1%)with the County for years due to the city's annexation of part of "auto row" years ago. We have fought with the county for years to get the rest of that sales tax back to no avail, they arguing that since the people they serve are for the most part in the city of napa anyway blah blah blah. Out of the blue, two months ago, the county passed an resolution saying that they were going to give us the rest of the tax back as of 7/1/00. We were stunned but quickly amended our ordinance, sent it to them, so they could amend their own agreement with the State Board of Equalization. We're still in shock and can only figure that the whole deal was political since our mayor was running against an incumbant board member and the board member wanted to look like he loved cities! JED City of Jackson We are in the preliminary phase of what you are going through. We do not have a master agreement and there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the property tax percentages that have been negotiated in the past. There are also major sales tax issues in the areas directly adjacent to our city limits with the county. Camarillo Steve, nine of the ten cities in Ventura County share all sales tax receipts with the County. The county gets 3.3% of the 1%. I don't know of anything the cities get in return. The agreement was developed long before my arrival here. I'm sure some of the other cities in Ventura County will also send you some comments.
