Lincoln's Measure F: Just the facts

I rarely respond to social media posts because people's minds are usually made up, and engagement often leads to an endless cycle. My college debate experience also taught me that presenting unsupported claims as facts is a sure way to lose an argument in a structured environment. A recent post about the city's Measure F, which would add a 1 percent charge to all applicable sales tax items, prompted me to write this column because a fair amount of misinformation is circulating in the community about the measure. Let's review some basics. California has a standard 7.25 percent sales tax on applicable sales. Of this amount, only 1 percentage point goes to the city, with the remainder primarily going to the state (6 percentage points) and to transportation projects (0.25 percentage points). Cities can levy additional sales tax percentages – 100 percent of which stay with the city – and these funds cannot be taken by the state. Several cities now charge up to 11.25 percent in sales tax. In Placer County, Roseville has a 7.75 percent sales tax rate, while Rocklin is proposing a 0.5-percentage-point increase on top of its 7.25 percent rate. According to professional polling of Lincoln residents, public safety is our citizens' top concern. We also know we are an exceptionally safe city compared to our peers, even though we have the lowest ratio of public safety costs to residents ... yes, even lower than Loomis and Colfax. Bottom line, we already do more with less. Our current budget shows that Lincoln faces a structural General Fund deficit, primarily due to the end of federal COVID funding and a property tax-sharing agreement with the county. Our five-year General Fund projections (in which police and fire services account for most expenditures) indicate that by 2030 we will have exhausted all our reserves. Obviously, the city could not responsibly allow that to happen, so we would need to implement cost-cutting measures before then. This would, frankly, return us to Great Recession days, where significant cuts will need to be made. We also know that we now have several major commercial projects either in the final planning stages or underway. However, the sales tax proceeds from those projects won't reach full fruition for four to six years, and that assumes no recession or other adverse impact. Bottom line, we have an immediate public safety funding problem. We also know that we are in the distinct minority of full-service cities that do not have paramedics on our fire engines and instead rely on private ambulance companies for paramedic services. In Lincoln, our fire apparatus is almost always first on the scene, but we can realistically provide only basic first aid. The proposed Measure F would fund not only maintaining our current level of public safety but also enhancing it, first and foremost by establishing a 24/7 paramedic service. How much would the Measure cost us? 45 cents per household per day. Social media comments also suggested the city should have made the tax increase a special tax dedicated specifically to public safety. This would have required approval from 66 and 2/3 percent of voters. Polling indicated that while a higher percentage of voters considered public safety the city's highest priority, that support would not be enough for a two-thirds vote ... hence the general tax at 50 percent plus one vote. The real question is accountability: How can the city be held to ensure the new funds are applied to the areas (fire and police) it says it will? The Measure clearly states that a new, independent, citizen-staffed committee will track expenditures. There will also be a separate, independent audit of those expenditures. Finally, the new sales tax funds would go into a separate revenue fund, with separate accounts to track expenditures. Both revenues and expenses would be available for public scrutiny via a dedicated Transparency Dashboard. I think it is safe to say that if the funds were not spent as promised, our public safety personnel would not be bashful about publicly expressing their (rightful) outrage, and the city council would likely face recall elections. A former US president said, "Trust, but verify," and that is how the Measure was established. Measure F will be decided by our citizens because 100 percent of the proceeds will remain in the city for our use. I urge my fellow citizens to decide for themselves, based on facts. Richard Pearl is a Lincoln resident and retired consultant to local governments. He is the city council member for District 4 and the mayor for calendar 2026. This column reflects only his personal, not city policy, opinions. The goal of the column is to present issues that affect city residents in an impartial and understandable format. He can be reached at richardpearl.lnm@gmail.com.