hi welcome everybody this is community media center of marin tv cmcm tv and my name is craig slater i'm here today with larry bragman current mayor of fairfax and jory prum and we are going to be talking about measure d a half cent sales tax for fairfax which is on the ballot november eight here's jory first my name is jory prum i am with the commitee to oppose measure d and while the proponents of the measure d sales tax are making a lot of claims as to why it's necessary and what they've done to avoid it we've found that when looking at these claims critically that they actually don't hold up they claim that sales tax and property tax revenues have decreased they claim that the state grabbed money from local governments they claimed that the flood was very costly which it was but you know whether it contributed to the town's financial situation is a whole different story they claim that they've cut all departmental spending by four and we find that none of these actually hold up when studying the town's audits we actually find that they tell a very different story so well fairfax like most towns in california is facing a financial crisis because of the financial the housing bubble popping in california and throughout the country and as a result of that fact property taxes have actually gone down in fairfax in normal times property taxes go up about two twelve percent for the last three years unfortunately for fairfax our assessed valuation has gone down while the operating costs of operating the town of fairfax have gone up we've concluded after many discussions that the fairest way to handle this is a modest sales tax proposal of half a cent so in response to the town's assertions that property taxes and sales taxes are down we don't disagree that they have fallen over the last three years however if you take a larger view you'll actually see that there was a bubble and the bubble has corrected itself if you look at overall revenues of the town of fairfax from two thousand and five to two thousand and ten you'll find that revenues have actually increased over thirteen if you adjust that for inflation it actually comes out that the town is up by forty two in overall revenues the state money grabs is another one of their arguments except that while they happened the state was required to give all the funds back according to the two thousand and ten audit the flood did happen of course that was very costly but it has been paid for by fema oes and insurance and the town is still negotiating to get some of those funds back so that's it's not a final say but additionally those funds come from a different account also known as the storm capital fund and so those don't actually effect the general funds spending while the town claims to have spent four less in all departments it actually when you look at the overall information presented by the town's official audits you find out that actually spending is up twenty four twelve percent in all departments most recently i was told by town officials that that was as a result of flood spending and despite the argument about fema oes and insurance if we take that argument at face value it doesn't explain why general government spending us up seventy five but public works the folks who actually do the repairs around town are only up one hundred and sixty eight overall the town also claims that they've left unfilled positions vacant kind of insinuating that inferring that they're not hiring but then again this year they created a whole new position so we don't feel that they're actually doing quite everything they can or that the whole story is being told town of fairfax has had a frozen police position for the last four years we froze in the management position of planning director for the last year that's being handled by the manager and he's being backed up by somebody we brought in as a part timer to handle special chores all employee groups in fairfax have agreed to a continuing wage freeze wages have been frozen in fairfax for the last two years and under the new collective bargaining agreements we entered into this year they'll continue to be frozen for two more years in addition to that all employee groups have agreed to a five pay reduction because they're gonna be picking up five of their pensions so my question to jory is are all these groups wrong are all these bargaining units wrong that have looked at the budget and made these concessions for fairfax are the sacrifices being made by these employees simply in vain or for no reason the fact of the matter is is that property taxes throughout marin county have been declining for two years last year the assessor reduced property assessments on twenty one of the properties here in marin this year he reduced assessments for twenty seven of the properties here in marin county this has a devastating effect on local government because we depend on property assessments for property taxes property taxes pay for most of our general fund and the fact of the matter is is that since two thousand and nine our property taxes have declined by over two hundred thousand that's just a fact you can look it up at the county assessors office if you don't believe the numbers that we're posting in fairfax but i might add all the numbers that we post in fairfax have been audited and approved by independent outside auditors the town of fairfax they do have an audit it's a general audit it does not cover the actual budget it does not cover payroll it only covers the audits of expenditures and revenues and we agree that that generally is true and correct and we are using the numbers that come from those audits those official documents from the town of fairfax what we find when we analyze those audits is that from two thousand and five to two thousand and ten the town of fairfax brought in twenty seven million more revenue than they expected that on average the town of fairfax earns an additional four hundred and fifty nine thousand per year than they expect in fact if you chart it out you will notice that every single year the town has brought in more revenue than they expected they also spend more money than they expected from two thousand and five to two thousand and ten the town spent nine hundred and nine thousand more than they expected to spend and even with that twenty seven million budget surplus the town managed to spend the twenty three million deficit we don't disagree that over the last two years that the tax revenues are decreasing overall but over the last five years they are increased completely forty two overall so we don't say that the firefighters and town employees are wrong what we're saying is that the information that's being presented to them is not transparent it's not necessarily accurate and when you look at the information in a larger scope rather than saying just the last couple of years you find that the information being provided is very very easy to question and easy to find holes with we hope that the fairfax voters will do some research for themselves they'll look at the information we've provided which all cited and sourced and no one has so far been able to tell us that with any actual proof that the numbers we are citing are actually incorrect thank you jory i'd like to cite a number that you've put in your website that's absolutely incorrect go for it okay in the no on d website it claims that fairfax obtained in property tax for the year two thousand and nine approximately forty six million now if you look at the actual audit for two thousand and nine you'll see that fairfax actually received about three thousand four hundred and fifty three million in property tax so in other words the no on d website is off about a million dollars now let's go back to your figure about twenty seven million being unaccounted for the town has stated repeatedly that when we first received fema funds back in two thousand and six those funds were reported as part of the general fund that was actually noted in the town manager's budget statement for the year two thousand and six at page three of her budget statement now those funds plus the million dollars that you've misstated on your website might account for that twenty seven million i don't really know but it's a disservice to the truth to tell people that fairfax is not facing reduced general funds from a reduction in its property tax base it's just a denial of the crisis that we're in and we're not gonna be able to deal with it unless we first recognize the facts the town administration has done that we've frozen salaries we've frozen budgets town employees have done that by taking a salary freeze and a reduction on pensions i think together if the voters agree we can and will get through this crisis but not unless we all understand what's happening around us okay well i thought i was summarizing before so i'll just continue on larry i'm looking at the two thousand and nine fiscal year budget and it's or audit sorry and it says general revenues property taxes forty six million i don't know where you're getting your numbers from but if i can look it up in the audit i would imagine that anybody can and find it on the town's website if you go to the fairfaxsaysnocom website you'll find that all the figures are available directly on the website we have charted it out so people can see it we're not skewing the numbers we have not distorted any of the numbers we cite exactly where those numbers come from using footnotes and you can look all those numbers up for yourself and we hope that you will because we love this town we appreciate that people are taking the time a chance to actually find out more about this issue appreciate that the media center is covering this issue in such depth and we hope that you will do some research and learn more about it yourself before you go to the polls i'm gonna show you i don't know if you can focus on this but this is the no on d website that shows this forty six million figure okay now i'm gonna hold up the actual audit which shows property tax revenue of three hundred and forty three million so here's the truth in numbers here's the truth in numbers same document we're in a financial crisis and measure d is a modest proposal to get us through it as a town we can get through the crisis if we work together if we work together to pass measure d fairfax will not only survive it will thrive and that's my vision for fairfax it's a thriving resilient town and it goes to its own beat and i know measure d is part of that i'm seeing now property tax revenue that difference is precisely caused by the pension tax override which is property tax based he's counting one we're counting the other pick and choose numbers fine go ahead the point of it is the town's budget has been underestimated by over twenty seven million the town's expenses have been more than nine hundred thousand over budget the flood has nothing to do with this it's accounted for in a totally separate fund we can show it and we can show if you go to the website you can see the town's actual words explaining the town flood fund craig slater again i'm gonna read something from the no camp that the arguments of the town sound believable on the surface but when looked at with a critical eye it's obvious the justifications are not only false they're based on a complete lack of fiscal responsibility or accurate financial reporting from town staff and our elected representatives so that's the claim made by the no group and obviously the yes on d camp has a very different view of the management of the town so it's up for us as citizens to look at what is really going on here there's clearly a disagreement in the perception of the numbers and i think it really gets down to each of us doing our job as voters and finding out about the issues talk to people who are opponents talk to people who are proponents and find out how this might effect you and then how to vote hi my name's matt hartwellherrera i'm the campaign manager for yes for measure d and the reason we're supporting this is because we have a simple challenge within fairfax property taxes are down over the last couple years and expenses have continued to rise driven by spiraling healthcare costs and pension costs the town has taken lots of steps in order to make those other costs that we can contain go lower but we have not been able to bridge the gap and we simply must live within our means and the town chose a half cent sales tax because it was the fairest way to balance that budget it allows visitors from outside fairfax to contribute it doesn't apply to groceries it's a small half cent that replaces a one cent tax that was retired by california so our taxes will still be lower this is why measure d is a good compromise and will be good for fairfax it's just to call out the folks who have endorsed measure d we have the unanimous town counsel of fairfax the town finance director the town treasurer supervisor howe brown from the marin board of supervisors we have the fairfax police we have the fairfax firefighters we have the fairfax chamber of commerce the majority of businesses within fairfax as well as many individual folks within the community mark squire gary graham and others so there is a tremendous amount of support within the community and the folks that the citizens count on to represent them who have been elected and are hired in order to analyze thank you