CityofSantaBarbara
Sales Tax Results for the City of Santa Barbara – Quarter Ended December 31, 2023
The City of Santa Barbara received $7.2 million in sales tax revenue during the quarter ended December 31, 2023, which is the second quarter of the City’s fiscal year.
Year to date, total sales tax revenues are coming in about 8.4% below budget. This result reflects softening economic activity amid a persistently high-inflation environment. For fiscal year 2024, the City’s sales tax revenue budget is $30.6 million.
The Sales Tax table can be viewed on the below attachment.
Transient Occupancy Tax Results for the City of Santa Barbara – Month Ended January 31, 2024
The City of Santa Barbara collected $1.5 million in Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) for January 2024, the seventh month in the City’s fiscal year. Year to date, the City has collected $19.1 million in overall TOT, of which approximately $17.7 million came from hotels and $1.4 million from short-term rentals. Year to date, total TOT revenues are coming in 4.2% below budget.
The Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) is a Tax on “Transient” guests staying in any hotel, inn, motel, or other commercial lodging establishment for a period of less than 30 days.
The City’s adopted TOT budget for all funds is $33 million, of which $27.5 million is budgeted in the General Fund.
The Transient Occupancy Tax table can be viewed on the attachment (page 2). The City’s TOT tax rate is 12%, of which 10% goes to the City’s General Fund and the remaining 2% goes to the Creeks/Clean Water Fund.
This what you get when you discourage people from shopping downtown by closing off streets and raising parking fees to $3 an hour.
“Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January 2024, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $700.3 billion, … up 0.6 percent above January 2023.”
https://www.census.gov/retail/sales.html
Perhaps if State Street was reopened to vehicles and trolleys and the smell of Urine lessened after the vagrants were moved off State Street, and the new element that hangs out there doing drug deals, were run off. or perhaps if there was just a small police presence SOMWHERE on State Street, or the crazies threatening families with violence , or the electric bikes doing 36 MPH or popping wheelies and almost running into the pedestrians, the tourist would return and the transient and local sales tax would go back up….ya think?