Return On Investment

By Ed Rast

Do you know what your taxes are being spent on and what city services or public benefits San Jose residents and businesses receive from them?

As we have discussed in “Just the Taxes Ma’am”, San Jose receives General Fund revenue of $663 per resident which is better than the average among 15 cities in Santa Clara County (5th) and the 12 largest cities in California (5th as well). Yet we continue to under-staff and under-fund essential city services including police, fire, and emergency medical services.

Budget documents prepared by San Jose city staff omit important revenue, staffing, and expenditure details. We frequently hear about city government spending in newspaper, television, or radio news, mostly as a result of a controversy, non-profit emergency funding, or critical City Auditor reports and Civil Grand Jury reports.

Most residents and businesses have little idea what their taxes are being spent on. But it’s not for lack of curiosity.

The lack of readily available and detailed city service spending and tax subsidy reporting makes it difficult for residents — not to mention the City Council — to understand where our taxes are being spent. This is particularly true for: 1) spending for services from non-profit, community-based organizations, school districts, or another government organization, or 2) corporations, developers and property owners receiving grants, economic development incentives or tax subsidies.

Here is a list of organizations receiving over $200,000 from the City of San Jose to provide a service in Fiscal Years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007. This is an incomplete list. We do not know how much support they received above $200,000, and we don’t know what specific service or services some of them provided as a public benefit to San Jose.

Here are two lists of organizations receiving grants from the City of San Jose in Fiscal Year 2007-2008, the first sorted alphabetically and the second by city service area and core services.

Now, read the two City Council policies on grants:

Council Policy 9-12 – Emergency Financial Assistance to Non-Profit Organizations

Council Policy 9-13 - Grants to Outside Entities

There are two questions you should be asking about these non-city services paid for with your taxes, and they’re multiple choice:

1. Who is receiving these services?
a) The general public
b) Individuals in need
c) Individuals, groups or companies that should be paying for these services
d) Residents and local businesses who pay city taxes

2. How should we classify these services?
1) Essential city services,
2) Services that the City should provide
3) Services we would like to provide if we did not have a budget deficit
4) Services that the City should not be providing

Do we know the answers? If not, why doesn’t the city administration make this information easily available and obtainable?

How can the Council and public make good policy, budget priorities, and spending decisions if we do not know where are our taxes are being spent, what tax subsidies are being provided and to whom, what services we receive, who is being provided outside services and what is the public benefit for our taxes spent?