☆ Instead of high-speed rail, why doesn’t CA fund Santa Clara County hospitals? (3/4)
If Measure A is supposed to address Medi-Cal limits, it’s “premature” says SVTA Board Member Elizabeth Brierly: why not let funding shake out in the state legislature—before making Santa Clara County take one for the team? But is this even about the hospitals? Brierly says the county's wanted a new sales tax for “quite a while.” An Opp Now exclusive Q&A.
Opportunity Now: Why do Santa Clara County Supes feel they need a sales tax in response to changes to Medi-Cal? Couldn’t another government entity, like the state, make up for any lost revenue?
Silicon Valley Taxpayer Association: If the state of California wants to continue to offer health care services to foreign nationals, it can choose to do so. If not, then the 58 counties can make their own decisions. But if this is such an emergency, why is only one county out of 58 raising taxes?
Medi-Cal is the responsibility of the state legislature and governor. They have a much larger budget of approximately $340 billion. So, we haven’t even had the opportunity to have our state government make that decision yet.
Some are fearful that since Gavin Newsom is running for president that he will put some limitations in place such as limiting services for non-USA citizens. However, Santa Clara County does not want this, thus they want a new local source of revenue to continue with business as usual.
ON: What parts of the state budget could the money come from?
SVTA: The state legislature might suspend paying for high-speed rail, inefficient programs, implementing state auditor suggestions, Legislative Analyst Office suggestions, and allocate money to help Medi-Cal. The whole thing has not shaken out yet and we should wait for the state legislature. The county sales tax is at best premature since the state government should be the first move and instead is simply taking advantage of a political climate and public opinion.
ON: Isn’t there a risk that the state would then give less money to Santa Clara County if the Measure A tax hike creates some kind of county healthcare fund?
SVTA: Great point. The county has tried to self-fund transportation projects, then the state sees Santa Clara has already raised taxes so they don’t need as much of our state funding.
Who’s more politically connected than Santa Clara County? LA County, San Francisco County, Alameda County, Sacramento County, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. These counties might just say, we need more state money because we have either a bigger population, wealthy donors, swing districts for congress, etc. Not all allocations may be equal as carveouts will be made.
ON: It’s like Santa Clara is really eager to take one for the team. Or is there something else going on? Why was this rushed onto the special ballot?
SVTA: The county has been looking to raise sales taxes for quite a while as Senator Cortese sponsored Senate Bill 335 two years ago allowing Santa Clara County to avoid complying with the limitations of the state cap on sales tax. In the past, this sales tax increase didn't have the support of certain supervisors thus it was tabled. But there was always work going on behind the scenes to line up support.
The item was only put on the public-facing agenda 24 hours before the Board of Supervisors vote on August 7th.
Recently, polling was done by an outside entity, so you can’t do a public records request on it. But that was in July. How is it an emergency when you’re working on it behind the scenes for weeks, if not months? The County could have produced that agenda days or a week before the vote.
In the City of San Jose and elsewhere if you're going to propose a tax increase, the agenda needs to be out 10 days before.
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