Tax to fund Atascadero road repairs is expiring. Now city wants to make it permanent
A half-cent sales tax that has helped Atascadero fund road repairs for close to a decade is set to expire in the next three years — unless voters approve to extend it this fall.
On March 26, the Atascadero City Council directed staff to begin drafting a measure for the November ballot that, if approved, would extend Measure F-14 beyond its initial sunset date of March 31, 2027.
Measure F-14 — a 0.5% sales tax increase — passed with 58% of the vote in November 2014. The tax was intended to fund Atascadero’s street repair, maintenance and rehabilitation projects, according to a city staff report.
Since it officially went into effect in April 2015, the “tremendously successful” measure has helped fund more than 13 neighborhood road repair projects, totaling $17.2 million, deputy city manager Lara Christensen told the City Council on March 26.
That translates to about 52 miles worth of roads, she said.
“That’s huge,” Christensen said.
She added that the city’s overall pavement condition index has gone up by 2 points to 49 since the measure passed — a notable improvement over the 17-point drop that was anticipated if the measure hadn’t passed.
During the meeting, the City Council briefly questioned whether the new measure extending Measure F-14 should also include a sunset clause as the first did.
Ultimately, the council decided to not pursue that, however, following staff’s recommendation that doing so would put the council in the same position once again in the future.
What happens next?
The measure to extend will have to be finalized before August 2024 if it can show up on the November ballot.
This means in order to provide staff with enough time, the City Council must make an official decision on placing the measure on the ballot at its June 11 meeting, according to the report.
If it makes it onto the ballot and if voters approve it, the measure would continue the existing half-cent sales tax starting April 1, 2027 — meaning the city’s current sales tax rate of 8.75% would remain unchanged.
This story was originally published April 9, 2024 at 9:00 AM.
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