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IMHO, this entire 1.5% payroll tax should go. And while we're at it, lets bring the property tax below 1%. And sales tax should go back to the 8% that it used

by ajays 16y ago

IMHO, this entire 1.5% payroll tax should go. And while we're at it, lets bring the property tax below 1%. And sales tax should go back to the 8% that it used to be. Yesterday I got an email from SEIU (the government employees union), asking me to write in opposing this deal. It turns out there are over 14,000 city employees in the City + County of SF. For a population of under 800,000 . Wow. And in last years election, they were pushing hard for a ballot initiative that would have slapped an additional tax on hotel rooms. There is just too much bureaucracy in this city. As revenues have gone up, the bureaucracy has ballooned. The City's annual budget is $6 Billion; and yet they can't find the $300K to support the SF Botanical Garden? In the meantime, personnel costs keep skyrocketing. Politicians keep hiring their cronies. For example: a local politician served before there was a law providing for healthcare benefits upon retirement for politicians. So he was hired for a month on the City payroll; his previous service counted, and voila! Now he has subsidized healthcare for the rest of his life. Lucrative Parking Garage management contracts are awarded at below market rates to cronies, who make a tidy profit. Abuse is rampant all across San Francisco. The only way to stop is to stop the flow of funds that enables such abuse. [edit: I had written 34,000 earlier; corrected it to 14,000 City employees]

Duff 16y ago
Try living in Upstate NY. My school taxes were $2,500 in 2007. With no change in property assessment, they are up to $3,400 this year. And we just found out that the local library wants to jack their portion of the tax by over 25%. This place was a boomtown in the 1960's. Today, the booming business is in demolishing abandoned buildings.
- ajays 16y ago
  In San Francisco, a 2-BR condo goes for around $800K. At a 1.16% property tax rate, you'll be paying $9000/year in property taxes. How's that for a tax rate?
  - Duff 16y ago
    In my city, a 3 BR home assessed at $175k goes gets hit for $3100 school and $2100 city/county taxes. A little less than 3x more. That said I'm not claiming that San Francisco is a cheap place to live, but I'm assuming, that like NYC, living there comes with other opportunities that may balance the costs somewhat.
whyenot 16y ago
Yesterday I got an email from SEIU (the government employees union), asking me to write in opposing this deal. It turns out there are over 34,000 government employees in the City + Country of SF. For a population of under 800,000 . Wow. Why does this surprise you? SF has SF State, UCSF, Hastings Law, the 9th Circuit Court, USGS, GGNRA and is home to many other government agencies. Also, corruption and patronage aren't exactly new in SF, they have been part and parcel in the city going back to before the 1906 earthquake. If anything, SF is a lot less corrupt now than it was during the dot com boom when Willie Brown was mayor.
phlux 16y ago
You still need to include the employees of DPH and DPW in your count - so the count is still really high. ~25K
jellicle 16y ago
14,000 full and part-time city employees to run a city of 800,000. You love the city's services so much that you chose to live there, yet because you are an expert city planner, you are confident that all those services could be provided with fewer staff. Police, Fire, EMS, garbage, roads, parks, public health, water supply. Feel free to check the box next to the services in that list that you think should not be provided, and feel free to relocate to a city that does not in fact provide those services.
- ajays 16y ago
  No, I don't love the City's services; I love the people who LIVE in the City. The streets are full of potholes. The public transit system (MUNI) is chronically broken (why? because 70% of their cost is personnel!). There are 9000 City employees who make more than $100K per year; when I have friends who are barely able to get by. Remember: the Government of SF didn't make this City like some Disneyland and then people moved in; the people were here first . You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody in San Francisco who moved here because "the City's services are great".
  - Karhan 16y ago
    the homeless?
    - ajays 16y ago
      OK, you have a point: the homeless do get some benefit from City services. Though even that system is broken. I pass by several homeless people lying in the doorways every day.
      - jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
        It may be possible that there's a disconnect between "I'm offended by seeing street poverty on a daily basis" and "the system for dealing with poverty in SF is broken". Unless your plan is to turn all homeless people in SF into Soylent Green, in which case you should run for mayor and good luck with that. You propose to reduce property tax to 1%. Property tax is what pays for schools, it's not some kind of source of government waste as you seem to imply. You probably don't know this, but this year, schools in SF were shut down for a extra week each year because of lack of funding. That's a week of schooling that my kids were supposed to have and they aren't getting because it's impossible to bring in the correct amount of money to keep our schools open. How would you propose to pay for schools if you slashed property taxes to 1%? (Hint: bake sales only take you so far.)

by ajays 16y ago

Duff 16y ago

Try living in Upstate NY. My school taxes were $2,500 in 2007. With no change in property assessment, they are up to $3,400 this year. And we just found out that the local library wants to jack their portion of the tax by over 25%. This place was a boomtown in the 1960's. Today, the booming business is in demolishing abandoned buildings.

ajays 16y ago
In San Francisco, a 2-BR condo goes for around $800K. At a 1.16% property tax rate, you'll be paying $9000/year in property taxes. How's that for a tax rate?
- Duff 16y ago
  In my city, a 3 BR home assessed at $175k goes gets hit for $3100 school and $2100 city/county taxes. A little less than 3x more. That said I'm not claiming that San Francisco is a cheap place to live, but I'm assuming, that like NYC, living there comes with other opportunities that may balance the costs somewhat.

whyenot 16y ago

Yesterday I got an email from SEIU (the government employees union), asking me to write in opposing this deal. It turns out there are over 34,000 government employees in the City + Country of SF. For a population of under 800,000 . Wow. Why does this surprise you? SF has SF State, UCSF, Hastings Law, the 9th Circuit Court, USGS, GGNRA and is home to many other government agencies. Also, corruption and patronage aren't exactly new in SF, they have been part and parcel in the city going back to before the 1906 earthquake. If anything, SF is a lot less corrupt now than it was during the dot com boom when Willie Brown was mayor.

phlux 16y ago

You still need to include the employees of DPH and DPW in your count - so the count is still really high. ~25K

jellicle 16y ago

14,000 full and part-time city employees to run a city of 800,000. You love the city's services so much that you chose to live there, yet because you are an expert city planner, you are confident that all those services could be provided with fewer staff. Police, Fire, EMS, garbage, roads, parks, public health, water supply. Feel free to check the box next to the services in that list that you think should not be provided, and feel free to relocate to a city that does not in fact provide those services.

ajays 16y ago
No, I don't love the City's services; I love the people who LIVE in the City. The streets are full of potholes. The public transit system (MUNI) is chronically broken (why? because 70% of their cost is personnel!). There are 9000 City employees who make more than $100K per year; when I have friends who are barely able to get by. Remember: the Government of SF didn't make this City like some Disneyland and then people moved in; the people were here first . You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody in San Francisco who moved here because "the City's services are great".
- Karhan 16y ago
  the homeless?
  - ajays 16y ago
    OK, you have a point: the homeless do get some benefit from City services. Though even that system is broken. I pass by several homeless people lying in the doorways every day.
    - jeffreymcmanus 16y ago
      It may be possible that there's a disconnect between "I'm offended by seeing street poverty on a daily basis" and "the system for dealing with poverty in SF is broken". Unless your plan is to turn all homeless people in SF into Soylent Green, in which case you should run for mayor and good luck with that. You propose to reduce property tax to 1%. Property tax is what pays for schools, it's not some kind of source of government waste as you seem to imply. You probably don't know this, but this year, schools in SF were shut down for a extra week each year because of lack of funding. That's a week of schooling that my kids were supposed to have and they aren't getting because it's impossible to bring in the correct amount of money to keep our schools open. How would you propose to pay for schools if you slashed property taxes to 1%? (Hint: bake sales only take you so far.)