Another sales tax vote? Unions, nonprofits team up to get countywide half-cent hike on 2026 ballot

After months of trial balloons and public warnings, San Diego County is one step closer to seeing a sales tax measure on the ballot in November.

A coalition of labor unions and nonprofits have banded together to start collecting signatures for a potential ballot measure that would ask voters to help fund county government with a half-cent sales tax surcharge.

If passed, the tax would be expected to raise $360 million for the county’s budget in its first year, said David Lagstein, a spokesperson for SEIU Local 221, the largest labor union representing county employees and one of the groups pushing the measure.

Money raised from the tax surcharge would help fund some of the most pressing issues facing county government, namely a strained social safety net, the Tijuana River Valley sewage crisis and wildfire safety, according to paperwork filed with the Registrar of Voters on Dec. 12.

“This measure is about San Diego protecting San Diego — no more excuses, no more waiting for Washington or Sacramento to change,” SEIU President Crystal Irving said in a statement.

Others pushing the sales tax surcharge include the county firefighters union and a network of some of the region’s leading nonprofit and philanthropic groups.

Among the members of Children First Collective San Diego, which signed the election paperwork, are the San Diego Foundation, the YMCA, Jewish Family Service and San Diego State University.

The emergence of a citizen-led ballot measure follows growing worries about the financial future of the county.

Earlier this year, the county closed a $138 million budget gap by eliminating vacant positions and other cuts.

But legislation enacted over the summer to add work requirements and other eligibility checks for Medicaid and food stamps will create a new financial burden for the county, which administers those programs.

Hiring new staff to handle work requirements and determine eligibility, along with other new cost-sharing requirements that could get passed on to local governments, could add up to $300 million to its annual budget.

Even before that problem for the county’s finances materialized, Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer had been pushing for a vote on new local revenue.

“We can raise the money ourselves,” Lawson-Remer said during her State of the County address in April. “Because when we wait, people spiral, and we all pay the price.”

Democratic supervisors have already been trying to study voters’ appetite for a sales tax ballot measure in recent months.

In October, a subcommittee formed by Lawson-Remer to study the county’s finances began trying to hire a consultant to poll voters on the question.

Last week, the panel also began searching for a firm to lobby the state.

According to a draft contract in the request for proposals from lobbyists, the county wants the state to let it raise taxes on real estate sales from 55 cents for every $500 in value to $30.55 for every $500.

The county also wants the state to start letting counties levy payroll taxes, according to the draft contract.

For a new sales tax surcharge, a supervisor-backed ballot measure would need a two-thirds majority to pass. But a citizen-led measure, like the one being pursued by labor and nonprofits, requires only a simple majority of votes.

In election paperwork, the coalition breaks down thresholds for how the county would have to spend the hundreds of millions in new revenue raised from the surcharge.

Up to 60% must be spent on social services such as health care and food programs. That could include in-home care for seniors, hiring more staff to determine food stamp eligibility requirements and support for the First 5 Commission of San Diego, a social services program for pre-kindergarten children.

Up to 23% of spending must go toward mitigating the toxic sewage crisis in the Tijuana River Valley. A fifth of that spending would have to be spent on infrastructure to stop the flow of sewage into the United States from Mexico.

Another 18% of new revenue must go toward public safety, including the hiring of new firefighters, paramedics and sheriff’s deputies.

The coalition backing the measure also proposes that an 11-member citizen oversight committee be in charge of auditing how the new revenue gets spent. County supervisors would appoint people to the committee.

If placed on the ballot, the sales tax measure could face competition from other public agencies putting a hand out to voters.

Organized labor is eyeing a separate citizen-led revenue measure for the city of San Diego, which faces an ongoing budget crisis. And city officials want to ask voters to approve a new tax on empty second homes and on vacation rentals.