CityofSantaBarbaraSource: City of Santa Barbara
Sales Tax Results for the City of Santa Barbara – Quarter Ended March 31, 2022
The City of Santa Barbara received $6.4 million in sales tax revenue during the quarter ended March 31, 2022, which is 18% above the same quarter last year. This increase is largely due to improved economic activity since last year, when the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to gain steam. Other contributing factors are the effects of inflation and continued growth in online sales. The quarter ended March 31, 2022, reflects sustained economic activity that was not significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The March quarter is the third quarter of the City’s fiscal year and the sales tax revenue budget for the fiscal year is $23.2 million.
For additional information on recent sales tax results, see the attachments link below.
Transient Occupancy Tax Results for the City of Santa Barbara – Month Ended June 30, 2022
The City of Santa Barbara collected $3.2 million in transient occupancy taxes (TOT) for June 2022. TOT revenues in June 2022 were about $307,000 above June collections last year—which was impacted by Covid-19 restrictions and travel advisories. Compared to the pre-pandemic levels of June 2019, revenues were higher by 40%; however, this is largely due to increased average daily rates, which are 44% higher than June 2019.
The local travel industry’s steady improvement in demand for rooms has continued into the summer season as more Covid-related restrictions have been lifted. As of June, occupancy levels have continued to stabilize around pre-pandemic levels. The City has collected $31.7 million through June, the twelfth and last month in the City’s fiscal year. The City’s adopted TOT budget for all funds is $23.4 million, of which $19.5 million is budgeted in the General Fund.
The Transient Occupancy Tax table can be viewed on the attachments link. The City’s TOT tax rate is 12%. 10% goes to the City’s General Fund and the remaining 2% goes to the Creeks/Clean Water Fund.
Where is the water use tax on hotels? Why do we allow thousands of people to come to our city, use as much water as the want with no restrictions while the profits go to out of town corporations? Have you seen the lush grounds of the hotels? Have you seen how much water they use?
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The TOT is used to pay for the city’s employee pension liability, it does nothing but provide a few more months of breathing room over the inevitable bankruptcy that will hit our city in the next 10years from the public union theft. Yes, we’ve been fleeced. They stole your kids bank account.
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Put in a Hotel Water tax. $20 a night, per room to start. Funds go to a specific use. Not into the general fund. Not into the bank accounts of ex-city employees. But into a specific fund to help the city pay for the water needs of its residents.
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While your bills go up and your landscaping dies, the hotels are under NO RESTRICTIONS and have NO incentives to change.
Hotel water use is a literal drop in the bucket to the amount the agriculture industry uses. While we need food, we do not need almonds and other water intensive crops grown in the middle of the desert/arid area, to be then exported all over the world.
Observer, you do realize this is the comments section of an online news magazine, right? Have you submitted your suggestions to the City Council? Have you attended CC meetings and presented public comment? Or are you just venting, stirring the pot or hoping someone else will do it instead of you? I don’t mean to sound unkind, but there is just a ton of armchair quarterbacking that maybe should be backed up with civic engagement.
LOL, you actually believe the city of SB cares about the well being of the citizens of SB? Show us one legislative or operational change this council has made to address the pension liability or the bloated size of the city’s head count or the huge waste of water by the tourist industry? These people dont work for the us, the citizens. They work for their benefactors, their buddies and their own personal, political ambitions.