Voters approved 191 of the 322 local tax measures on the ballot in this month’s election, according to preliminary results. Another 76 measures remain too close to call, but 36 will pass if the current results hold as remaining votes are counted.
If the results hold – including for the measures that are very close to the necessary vote thresholds – the 70.4 percent passage rate for local tax measures will be comparable to the rates of 82 percent and 69 percent in the 2018 and 2022 gubernatorial elections, respectively.
The direct local taxes approved this month (not including those that are still too close to call) are projected to cost taxpayers approximately $2.27 billion a year, while the voter-approved bonds authorize approximately $13.96 billion in borrowing that will be repaid – with interest – through property tax increases.
As many counties continue to process and tabulate mail-in, late-arriving, provisional, and conditional voter registration ballots, approximately 760,776 unprocessed ballots remained statewide as of today at 10:30 a.m., according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Voters across the state considered 79 sales tax increases, 76 parcel tax measures, 32 hotel taxes (officially known as transient occupancy taxes), 14 business license tax measures, eight property transfer tax measures, five utility users tax increases, two cannabis and other special tax measures, one vehicle tax measure, and one soda tax.
Voters also decided the fate of 87 bond measures for K-12 schools, nine community college facility bonds, and nine city, county, and special district bond measures.
CalTax’s local tax table includes details about the measures, along with the preliminary results. The table will be updated with final results when they are certified. (CalTax: An earlier version did not include full reporting from all counties, resulting in a significant undercounting of the local measures on the November 3 ballot. The table has been updated and now includes 322 measures.)
Passage rates varied significantly by type of tax:
- Sales tax, 58.22 percent.
- Hotel tax, 81.25 percent.
- Business license tax, 100 percent.
- Parcel tax, 52.63 percent.
- Property transfer tax, 62.5 percent.
- Cannabis and other special taxes, 77.77 percent.