{"id":465149,"date":"2026-09-16T03:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T03:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465149\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T03:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T03:06:09","slug":"fight-to-pass-measure-b-the-countywide-sales-tax-increase-heats-up-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/465149\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight to pass Measure B, the countywide sales tax increase, heats up \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaign rhetoric is heating up around Measure B<\/a>, the open-ended,\u00a0half-cent sales tax increase\u00a0that will appear on the November ballot throughout San Diego County.<\/p>\n

Proponents of the measure gathered at the county administration center Tuesday, launching a \u201cYes on B\u201d campaign that is backed by a coalition of health care organizations and labor unions pushing for a majority vote that would collect an estimated $400 million to $450 million per year designated to fund local health care coverage, Tijuana River pollution control and emergency personnel and fire-prevention programs.<\/p>\n

Assemblymember Carl DeMaio and county Supervisor Jim Desmond, who is running for Congress, are pursuing\u00a0a No on B campaign while\u00a0county Supervisors Palomar Aguirre and Terra Lawson-Remer are scheduled to promote the sewage-crisis aspects of the measure in an event Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s pro-B event focused on the effects of H.R. 1, also known as President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill,\u201d on local services.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeasure B is about protecting the future health and safety of San Diego County,\u201d said John Clark, deputy district vice president of Cal Fire Local 2081. \u201cWithout it, we are left completely exposed to growing wildfire threats, we will face weakened 911 response times, overloaded and overworked hospitals, and an economy at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeasure B prevents that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But DeMaio has pushed back against further increasing local sales tax rates at a moment when consumers face rising prices everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Diego families are already being crushed by the cost of living, and now county politicians want to hit them with another massive tax increase,\u201d DeMaio said in a statement. \u201cMeasure B would take hundreds of millions of dollars more out of taxpayers\u2019 pockets every year without fixing the waste and mismanagement that have plagued county government.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is clear that many state and local programs face funding shortfalls in the coming years as the federal budget makes changes that are expected to affect health care, fire response, and food programs.<\/p>\n

Estimates have indicated that new policies for twice-annual recertificaion of Medi-Cal benefits and work documentation requirements for some beneficiaries could cause more than 95,000 in the county to lose coverage.<\/p>\n

A county update<\/a> in July indicates that enrollment in CalFresh, the food program for needy Californians, had fallen from about 400,000 enrollees to 365,000 countywide since H.R. 1 implemented new work requirements and noncitizen eligibility restrictions earlier this year.<\/p>\n

All told, including impacts on firefighting resources and public safety services, a January analysis estimated<\/a> that H.R. 1\u2019s effect on the county\u2019s budget could reach $300 million per year.<\/p>\n

Measure B attempts to backstop the funding loss by levying an open-ended sales tax increase with specific earmarks: 60% for health care, nutrition and food security services, 22.5% for environmental mitigation of the \u201ctoxic sewage crisis\u201d underway in the Tijuana River Valley and 17.5% to bolster public safety, wildfire prevention and crisis response services.<\/p>\n

Those categories are further broken down, allocating specific percentages of each categories\u2019 revenue, such as 22% of the health care block for childcare and childhood development, 17% for reimbursement of medical services provided to uninsured residents and 5% to help pay for in-home health services.<\/p>\n

Campaign spokesperson Dan Rottenstreich said that the categories are designed to correspond to areas directly affected by budget cuts. For example, one allocation would help increase the number of workers who conduct Medi-Cal eligibility determinations, making it easier for those already enrolled to avoid losing their coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe primary focus is to keep as many people insured\u00a0as possible and prevent San Diegans from losing health coverage,\u201d Rottenstreich said. \u201cThe best way to ensure people get the care they need and to ensure that the hospitals are getting reimbursed is to keep people insured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some, DeMaio included, have pointed out that the half-cent sales tax imposed by Measure B, if it is successful at the ballot box, never expires. Unlike similar half-cent sales tax initiatives, this one would impose the tax continuously unless the public votes to repeal.<\/p>\n

The lack of a sunset date is a main reason why the San Diego County Taxpayers\u2019 Association opposes Measure B.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just feel like that is a valuable taxpayer safeguard that really should have been in the measure,\u201d said Mark Kersey, the association\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n

The measure\u2019s strict allocation of funds for specific uses, he added, is another reason why the measure did not earn an endorsement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it\u2019s done on a measure in perpetuity, what you\u2019re saying is that the funding solution you\u2019ve come up with today is going to always be the solution that the region needs,\u201d Kersey said.<\/p>\n

Rottenstreich said that the lack of an end date was more about ensuring that an ongoing funding source exists, given that some of the possible actions, such as hiring more firefighters and law enforcement officers, or putting pollution control devices in place, would not be short-term fixes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt disingenuous to make it sunset, because the needs are serious and, particular in public safety, short-term funding is not an acceptable strategy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to see wait times go down for five years only to spike again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measure B, which would need majority approval to pass, specifies a separate account for all revenue collected. It would also require an 11-member citizen\u2019s oversight committee. The San Diego County Board of Supervisors would appoint committee members and would also decide how funds are allocated as part of the county\u2019s annual budget process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Campaign rhetoric is heating up around Measure B, the open-ended,\u00a0half-cent sales tax increase\u00a0that will appear on the November…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1400,7,3053,989,643,1570,23,100,3054,13,74,84,76,75,3055,1696],"class_list":["post-465149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-east-county","tag-elections","tag-environment","tag-health","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-south-county","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465149","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=465149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}