Title
Provide Direction on Potential Revenue Measures to Submit to Voters for the November 6, 2018 General Election. (City Manager 2110)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
From: Elizabeth D. Warmerdam, Acting City Manager
Title
Re: Provide Direction on Potential Revenue Measures to Submit to Voters for the November 6, 2018 General Election
BACKGROUND
While the City of Alameda has a history of taking proactive measures aimed at fiscal discipline and is currently meeting its policy of a 25% reserve, significant financial challenges exist, including a projected General Fund deficit in five years due to CalPERS increasing payments towards the City's unfunded liabilities and substantial deferred infrastructure and public facility needs. In the City Council's February 20, 2018 consideration of an infrastructure bond, nearly $300 million in infrastructure needs were identified that are beyond the City's current and projected funding capacity. The City Council's May 18 Mid-Cycle Budget workshop detailed how long-term PERS unfunded obligations are projected to result in multimillion dollar funding gaps by Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-22.
Funding gaps require difficult choices including reduction in service levels or increasing revenues. These challenges are not new. The City of Alameda has been considering them since at least 2009, with the Fiscal Sustainability Committee's Long Range Financial Forecast 2009-2019 and the last two biennial budget processes.
Since 2000, Alameda has had four local revenue measures on the ballot. Over that same time period, the cities of Berkeley (19), Oakland (14), and San Leandro (7) had even more revenue measures. Alameda's four revenue measures were:
* Measure O ((2000) 78% of voters approving) was an $11 million general obligation bond to fund the new Main Library and improvements to branch libraries;
* Measure P ((2008) 51% of voters approving) raised the property transfer tax from $5.40 to $12.00 per $...
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