2 separate efforts would add a new half-cent sales tax to SLO County ballot. Why?
A new citizen-led group in San Luis Obispo County is racing to collect thousands of signatures in time to get a half-cent sales tax proposal on the November ballot.
The effort led by Better Roads for All — SLO County proposes hiking the county’s sales tax to fund future transportation projects.
The idea may sound familiar — the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments, or SLOCOG, recently pitched an identical plan to cities and the county Board of Supervisors in an attempt to get its own measure on the ballot.
The only difference between the two proposals lies in the percentage of votes they need to pass.
A citizen-led initiative requires only a simple majority of votes, while SLOCOG’s proposal would need a two-thirds majority.
If either proposal makes it onto the ballot and passes, SLO County would become a “self-help” county with its own dedicated cache to fund local transportation projects, instead of continuing to rely only on state or federal dollars.
The county’s Central Coast neighbors — Santa Cruz, Monterey and Santa Barbara counties — already have a voter-approved transportation tax in place, along with 22 other counties in California.
San Luis Obispo County previously had a transportation sales tax on the ballot in 2016. However, voters rejected Measure J, causing the county to lose out on approximately $270 million collected from taxes and around $430 million received from grants awarded to self-help counties over the past nine years, according to SLOCOG.
Better Roads for All committee chair Jorge Aguilar said he launched the initiative because he was sick of seeing the county miss out on crucial grants for transportation funding.
“I’m tired of losing,” he told The Tribune. “Our communities deserve better than that.”
Better Roads for All launches citizen-led signature drive
The group officially formed at the beginning of 2026, Aguilar said, after he spent years concerned about the county’s degrading roadways and declining funding streams for transportation projects.
As he zoomed into an Arroyo Grande neighborhood on Google Maps, Aguilar pointed out roads pockmarked with potholes and crumbling asphalt. He said the state of the streets could easily cause an unsafe situation where a driver gets a flat tire or loses an axle.
“If a person is just barely getting by, and they break that axle, and they can’t afford to fix it — they don’t go to work, or they have to delay school clothes or, God forbid, some food — that’s not right,” Aguilar said.
Better Roads for All has until the end of April to submit 12,400 valid signatures to get the sales tax proposal on the ballot.
With the deadline now less than two months away, Aguilar said Better Roads for All is aiming to collect 18,000 signatures to comfortably get across the finish line, but he couldn’t say for sure whether they would get there.
“I don’t know, honestly,” he said. “But the energy that is being put into it by the volunteers that I see gives me hope.”
How would transportation sales tax proposals be spent?
Both of the proposed measures from SLOCOG and Better Roads for All would last 30 years and jump the county’s sales tax by 0.5%.
The tax equates to $0.50 for every $100 spent, or around $100 to $150 for the average person each year, according to SLOCOG’s deputy director James Worthley.
The sales tax increase is critical to keep up with infrastructure costs since gasoline consumption has plummeted across the state in recent years, he said, causing California’s gas tax collection — which funds roadway repairs and maintenance — to dip dramatically.
“We’re all falling behind in terms of transportation, whether you’re thinking of road repairs or interchange improvements or other modal improvements, we’re falling behind, and it’s because the funding from the state and federal government isn’t keeping up with the costs,” Worthley added.
The sales tax would not apply to food, utilities, prescriptions, medical or housing costs, he said.
The county’s current sales tax rate is 7.25%. However, Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Grover Beach, Morro Bay, Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo’s rate is set at 8.75%, while Pismo Beach’s rate is 8.25%, according to California’s Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
According to SLOCOG estimates, the half-cent transportation sales tax could generate around $35 million annually from locals and tourists, as well as bring in $35 million to $70 million in grants each year.
The two proposals would allocate 55% of the revenue to cities and the county to fund road repairs, safety and transportation improvement projects, based on population size, while another 40% would go toward regional corridor improvements projects split between the North County, North Coast, central county and South County.
Another 4% would be spent on transportation services for seniors, veterans and those with mobility issues, and the final 1% would be used for administration costs and oversight into how the money is distributed, according to SLOCOG and Better Roads for All.
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Could 2 transportation sales tax proposals make it to the ballot?
Worthley said the two separate measures are not competing with each other because they’re essentially identical proposals.
“Either one gives the same result, we’re going to collect the same money, we’re going to spend the same way, we’re going to see the same improvement happen, no matter which one were to qualify and or be approved by the voters,” he said.
According to Worthley, voters will only see one sales tax proposal on the ballot, if either initiative even makes it there, which he said “is still a big if.”
He expects SLOCOG staff would recommend pulling the plug on its measure if Better Roads for All’s proposal qualifies for the ballot.
Aguilar said Better Roads for All has been “totally transparent” with SLOCOG since the start of its citizen-led effort. He hopes one of their efforts will result in voters having a chance to vote on the transportation sales tax this November.
“All our neighbors on the Central Coast have this, and they’re improving,” he said. “We’re falling behind, and it’s not getting any better, unless you put this in place.”
