Measure Q logo XX SPENDING
A rendering of the new police station in the 600 block of South Main Street that will be funded in part by Measure Q sales tax receipts.
Q IS REPLACING AGING BREATHING
APPARATUS FOR CITY FIREFIGHTERS
Initial year sales tax receipts addressing ‘egregious’ public
safety vehicle & equipment needs; pumping up road work
By DENNIS WYATT
The Bulletin
Manteca is in the process of spending $9.5 million in Measure Q sales tax receipts although they have yet to receive a penny from the state that collects it from business making taxable transactions.
The three-quarter cent 20-year tax went into effect April 1.
The check for the initial second quarter (April, May, and June) collection will arrive from Sacramento by the end of September.
The $9.5 million has been spent on includes:
*New breathing apparatus for firefighters. The equipment is 20 years old with parts next to impossible to secure.
*Three new fire engines.
*Upgrades police body cameras.
*New police tasers.
*3-D mapping equipment for crime scenes that will reduce time compared to paper, pencil, and tape measures.
*Three additional police officers.
*A community service officer.
*20 police vehicles for patrol, the traffic division, and unmarked.
*$4.5 million for road work.
“We are doing what we told people we would do with the Measure Q taxes,” noted City Manager Toni Lundgren. “Public safety and streets are the top priority.”
Police spending so far comes to $2 million with the fire department at $3 million.
As for roads, it prevented annual road work from going unfunded and allowed additional work to take place.”
Manteca received $2.5 million less this fiscal year in gas tax revenue and Measure K set aside for local road maintenance.
Voters in the Measure Q campaign were told the state was reducing gas tax disbursements, which is exactly what happened this year.
As for the countywide Measure K sales tax, it has always been programmed to reduce the county’s eight cities share for road maintenance.
Measure K is primarily a tax for new road and transit projects such as the upgrading of the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 connector currently taking places under the auspices of the San Joaquin Council of Governments.
Measure Q covered the $2.5 million shortfall in road maintenance funds to allow work such as repairing and resurfacing streets in the Shasta Park neighborhood to move forward.
Lundgren said without Measure Q, the city would have had to impose $2.5 million in service cuts to keep the existing road work effort from being scaled back.
It also is funding an additional $2 million in road work this year that was not budgeted.
In the past, such as when Measure M passed in 2004 to hire additional frontline public safety personnel, the city would have waited until they had a year’s worth of revenue to start spending it.
The City Council opted to put spending plans in motion after the tax was approved and before it went into effect to address egregious public safety vehicle and equipment deficiencies.
They tapped reserves that will be reimbursed when the quarterly tax checks arrive.
First year Measure Q receipts were projected at a conservative $12 million.
Second year Measure Q
spending plan is long range
The city is now working on a Measure Q spending plan for the second year on.
It will continue to address streets and public safety operational needs
But it will also cover other municipal needs.
The biggest is the new police station in the 600 block of South Main Street.
It will be finance, in part, by a bond that would cover the last 18 years of the Measure Q tax.
The city also has amassed more than $22 million in government facilities growth fees of which part of it will be tapped to fund the new police station.
Manteca also is updating the growth fee while the police station is in its design phase.
Otter needs Measure Q could address run the gamut from community park and recreation amenities to more staffing to address needs such as code enforcement from private property upkeep and more.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
