SDCTA Opposes Prop D: National City Sales Tax Extension
Sufficient action has not been taken to control expenditures. Maintaining a balanced National City budget requires expenditure control. After Proposition D was passed in 2006, National City initially experienced two years of budget deficits due to both revenue reduction and expenditure rise. The city has been able to reduce expenditures when benefiting from a recovering economy, but city officials are predicting that in just two years, revenues will increase by 4.1 percent and expenditures will increase by 22.5 percent. Assuming revenues and expenditures continue to grow under current trends, the city will still be experiencing budget deficits in future years even with an extension of the sales tax. In addition, the 20-year extension is essentially perpetuity as two decades is longer than city finances can reasonably be projected.