{"id":247375,"date":"2026-04-01T22:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247375\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T22:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T22:06:07","slug":"fullerton-wants-to-tax-public-to-fix-dumb-mistake-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247375\/","title":{"rendered":"Fullerton wants to tax public to fix dumb mistake \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a 2023 article about the pitiful state of Fullerton\u2019s roads, the VoiceofOC\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cMayor Fred Jung pointed to decades of neglect and misappropriation from previous city councils that didn\u2019t prioritize infrastructure in one of OC\u2019s oldest cities.\u201d Yet despite receiving a federal COVID-19 windfall of $33 million, the city\u2019s roads remain filled with potholes. And now the city is facing another problem involving the mistaken accounting of public funds.<\/p>\n

The publication\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last month that the city, already facing challenging budget issues, found itself with another big funding hole after \u201ccity staff told them they erroneously accounted for over $10 million in reserves that was actually money already spent.\u201d The city is looking at a budget deficit \u2014 and is now scrambling to come up with the cash. Fullerton\u2019s reserves have been obliterated.<\/p>\n

Accounting errors this large are troubling. But Jung\u2019s solution is even more disturbing: Jung is backing a transportation tax to avoid making major service cuts. Fullerton isn\u2019t the only city that wants to force its residents to pay more to make up for city officials\u2019 poor spending decisions. As the Register\u00a0reported<\/a>, the city of Orange is facing a $19-million deficit and is looking at tax increases. Buena Park, Seal Beach and La Habra\u00a0boosted taxes<\/a>\u00a0in 2024. Santa Ana is looking at making its \u201ctemporary\u201d sales-tax increase\u00a0permanent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before residents try feeling their city governments\u2019 pain, they ought to take a look at the\u00a0Transparent California<\/a>\u00a0database detailing what their cities currently spend on public-employee salaries. Using the latest data (2023), we find in Fullerton 50 city employees earn total pay and benefit\u00a0packages<\/a>\u00a0of between $344,000 and $543,000. Fullerton isn\u2019t unique, but these costs might explain why infrastructure remains underfunded.<\/p>\n

In times of soaring inflation, it\u2019s frustrating that cities are increasing residents\u2019 tax burdens. City officials always give voters a\u00a0Hobson\u2019s Choice<\/a>: higher taxes or the continued erosion of public services. Throw in some staff incompetence in misallocating $10 million and Fullerton residents will once again be forced to choose between those two rotten alternatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a 2023 article about the pitiful state of Fullerton\u2019s roads, the VoiceofOC\u00a0explained\u00a0that \u201cMayor Fred Jung pointed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1965,975],"class_list":["post-247375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-editorials","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}