Opinion: Falsely framed CC County budget story promotes Measure B tax increase

By Mike Arrata

A report on the 2026-27 budget, by a Contra Costa County public information officer, is essentially a tax-promotion advertisement for Measure B’s intended 0.625% sales-tax increase.  It omits essential facts to the potential benefit of the County’s already overpaid administrative staff and its 15 highly compensated employee unions.  Consider the following:

1. The County’s tentative $7.248 Billion budget for 2026-2027, were it to remain unchanged at the July 1 start of new Fiscal Year 26-27, would still be a massive 60.7% higher than FY20-21’s $4.51 Billion. (See p. 9 at link.)  November 2020 was when the County passed Measure X, itself a 0.500% sales tax increase. The Bay Area’s CPI inflation rate, meanwhile, has totaled 18.4% since Measure X’s passage (358.6 /302.9 = 1.184). The County’s spending increase since the end of 2020 is 3.3 x the inflation rate.
2. Measure B, on the June 2nd ballot, would add another 0.625% in new sales taxes, raising every part of the County above the statutory 2% limit on LOCAL sales-tax rates, over and above the existing statewide 7.250% rate.  7.250% + 2.000% = an effective statutory-limit total of 9.250%.  If Measure B passes, sales-tax rates in the County will instead range from 9.375% to 10.875%.   An additional 0.500% transit sales-tax measure is upcoming on the November ballot.
3. In bypassing the relevant statute, all the County’s tax promoters had to do was to get an on-call legislator to include Contra Costa County in an existing, illegitimate Los Angeles bypass bill (AB1768), say shazam(!) — and poof!  No more 2% limit on any local sales-tax rates here.  (Actually, Measure X itself took local rates in six Contra Costa municipal jurisdictions above 2%.)
4. As is, the County’s 2026 own union-member employment head count is up 4% over 2025(slide 10) — 10,308 vs. 9,913.  And 9 of the County’s 15 union contracts expire 4 weeks after Election Day.  That’s a clue for the likely real purpose of Measure B.
5. As of 2024 (last year available), 4,781 County employees were already above $150,000 in salary plus benefit compensation.  3,056 of those exceeded $200,000.  1,045 of those exceeded $300,000.  278 of those exceeded $400,000, with 78 above $500,000.  How many executive-level employees does the County need?  How many should we pay for?
6. Measure X presented an urgent, COVID-time focus on healthcare and “life-saving services.”  Now, allegedly, “lives will be lost” without Measure B (pages 33-34 of 86 in Voter Guide).  In fact, Measure X’s millions have been used for multiple other purposes.  And Measure B’s authorizing ordinance, like Measure X’s, again exposes this new tax as “solely for general governmental purposes and not for specific purposes.” County politicians and administrators could spend Measure B’s millions on whatever they consider “governmental” — as they’ve already been doing in Measure X’s first 5 of 20 years.  Measure B could facilitate or directly bankroll the next round of employee enrichments.
7. Measure X, the template for Measure B, was supposed to collect $81 Million annually in additional new sales-tax revenues.  Instead, it’s taken in over $120 Million annually (page 11 of 16), and Measure X has another 15 years to run.  Meanwhile, Measure X has accumulated $263 Million in unspent funds (same page).  Those dollars, rather than more new sales-tax revenue, could and should be dedicated to any healthcare deficiency that actually develops.
8. And speaking of excess funds, the County has a General Fund balance of $1.21 Billion, of which the unassigned portion is $585 Million. Both figures are more that 4 times the County’s own announced standardfor reserves on hand (pages 18 and 56 of 269).
9. County supervisors tried to get away with an alleged $307 million ANNUAL healthcare budget deficiency, (e.g. hereand here) until I and others pointed to figures stated by their own financial advisory firm (itself holding an $8 Million contract).  That reality was a potentially CUMULATIVE $307 Million by FY28-29, not an annual one.  Their chief financial advisor then returned with a new slide showing larger potential amounts in FY29-30 and FY30-31 — in a new presidential administration and 2 new Congresses from now.  As stated in ballot arguments, Measure B is at best premature.
10. Due to some funding restoration already announced, the new budget deficiency projected in an updated County slide was a cumulative $219 Million by FY28-29 (though minutes of the Board of Supervisors’ meeting presented the amount as $239 Million).  Even that is speculative; and again, Measure X could cover that amount if needed, under its originally announced purposes.  And to begin with, much of the funding problem derives from withdrawal by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services of “federal Medicaid dollars to cover health care for individuals who are in the country illegally” (as “a backdoor pathway to subsidize open borders”).
11. The County’s Measure B propagandists claim elsewhere that “It exempts food, housing, and medical care, so most of the money from this tax will come from corporate or large luxury purchases.”   But as the East Bay Times said (among many other factors in opposing Measure B itself), “State data indicates that the average person in the county currently pays at least $1,050 a year in sales tax.”  Food/grocery exemptions?  Not for prepared foods, soft drinks, beer and wine, ice, many convenience grocery store items, etc. — and not for restaurant bills.  Housing exemptions?  Not for materials used to build and maintain houses.  Exemptions for medical care?  Not for over-the-counter medicines.
12. Rather than voting to continue engorging the already vastly over-funded and overcompensated County spending apparatus and apparatchiks:  attentive and fair-minded voters will vote NO on Measure B — thereby to leave taxpayers, especially those already struggling with affordability problems, with more of their own money to spend for items THEY see as needs.

Regarding the County’s self-serving Measure B schemers — and their dishonest 2020 predecessor, Measure X:  the response now should be “Fool us once, shame on them.  Fool us twice, shame on us!”

More information:  StopMeasureB.com

Arrata is a member of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, but opinions expressed here are his own.