EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV) – City of El Cajon leaders are sounding alarm as the City's half-cent sales tax, which has been in place in the City for nearly two decades, is set to expire in 2028.
City leaders believe the sales tax is crucial for public safety, so they worked to plan ahead on Tuesday night and got the public’s opinion before the sales tax expires.
“Proposition J expires, which is going to give us a $13 million a year deficit," El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells said.
The voters approved the sales tax through Proposition J in 2008, set to last 20 years.
Wells and the City said that approximately $13 million in annual revenue from the tax makes up about 14% of El Cajon's general fund, which is vital for the police and fire departments, as well as for maintaining parks and infrastructure.
“We have to make sure [we] have enough police officers and firefighters on the street," Wells said. "Firefighters are ultimately important because they’ve really changed roles now from just fighting fires to doing public safety, as far [as] the medical response. Both those things are massively important."
Heartland Fire and Rescue Chief Bent Koch told ABC 10News that if the sales tax is not extended, the department's work could be extremely difficult.
“Though, it’s going to be most likely on a rolling brownout basis but, there’s going to be portions of our communities that are not going to get that service if we are not able to staff stations or fire engines,” Koch said.
The City is trying to understand how voters would feel if it put an extension for Prop J on the November ballot.
It hired a polling center to gauge that interest and found that around 61% of those surveyed expressed support for this kind of measure.
“I want to make sure that in line with what the public wants. We certainly don’t want to be pushing something on the public that they don’t want,” Wells said.
The next step for the City is continued outreach by planning town halls and community meetings on the possible extension, why it’s needed and if there’s still a positive interest from the public of a possible measure to see if it should be placed on the November ballot by the Council.
