Every voter in Merced County will see Measure R on their ballots, a countywide half-cent sales tax initiative to support Merced County public safety.

Measure R, or the Merced County Public Safety Stabilization Act, was placed on the November ballot by the Merced County Board of Supervisors as an effort to boost funding for the county’s sheriff and fire departments, as well as for the district attorney’s office.

The ballot initiative comes at a time when the county is closing fire stations and bleeding public safety personnel to neighboring counties with better pay.

A large portion of the county’s budget is spoken for by federal and state programs. But out of the $135 million the Board of Supervisors controls, it allocates nearly 80% of that funding to public safety.

Still, county officials say they need more funding to maintain a higher quality of service.

“The citizens of this county deserve absolutely the best that we can provide and this tool, I’ll call it, is going to be, to me, a necessary endeavor so that we can provide these services,” Sheriff Vern Warnke said at an August Board of Supervisors meeting. 

“I hate the idea of answering the phone and we don’t have anybody to send.”

What voters are being asked

The question on every Merced County voter’s ballot will appear as follows:

“To enhance funding for public safety services in Merced County, including the sheriff’s department, district attorney’s office, and fire department; and to provide direct allocations to city public safety departments in the county, shall Merced County enact a 0.5% retail transactions (sales) and use tax raising an estimated $25 million annually for 30 years, with citizen oversight, annual audits, and funds that cannot be taken by the state?”

Voting yes means you support the tax, and voting no means you do not support it.

Approval of Measure R requires two-thirds of qualified voters casting “yes” votes. If it fails to obtain two-thirds, the half-cent tax will not be imposed.

How tax rates would change

According to an impartial analysis completed by Merced County Counsel Forrest Hansen, Measure R is expected to generate $25 million annually for 30 years.

If passed, the sales tax would bring Merced County’s sales tax rate to 8.25% – tying with the unincorporated area of Kern County for the highest county sales tax rate in the San Joaquin Valley, which stretches from Stockton to Bakersfield. Kern County also collects a public safety sales tax in its unincorporated areas.

Measure R is a special use sales tax. That means anyone who buys or purchases goods anywhere in Merced County will pay it, and the revenue that it generates can only be used for public safety.

Retailers in half of Merced County’s incorporated cities already charge sales tax to help pay for public safety. If Measure R passes, those cities would see their sales tax rates increase. 

Atwater and Los Banos shoppers, for example, would see the county’s highest local sales tax rates at 9.25%, up from 8.75%, if Measure R passes. 

When compared to the sales tax rates of cities within Merced County, the rate for unincorporated areas of the county would remain on the lower end.

Will incorporated cities benefit?

Measure R differs from the city of Merced’s Measure C sales tax that was on the March ballot. 

Measure R will need more “yes” votes to pass and be enacted because the tax was placed on the ballot by a governing body – the Merced County Board of Supervisors – rather than a citizen’s petition and signature-gathering campaign, which is how Measure C qualified for the ballot.

While Measure C only needed to win a simple majority to pass, Measure R will need to secure two thirds votes to pass.

If Measure R passes, cities with a public safety tax in place, such as Atwater, Merced and Los Banos, will pay a public safety tax to both the city and county. 

Supporters of Measure R say that’s one reason why the measure includes a city and town grant program, so incorporated jurisdictions will receive money from the tax as well. Additionally, they say, many county public safety functions, such as coroners, corrections, prosecutors and victims advocates, service all jurisdictions.

“That’s why for those people who shop in the city of Merced, if they have to pay it, we want them to get the benefit of it. And they’ll get the benefit of it as well because the DA’s office, we prosecute everybody,” said Nicole Silveira, Merced County’s district attorney.

Merced County will use most of its share of the money to hire more deputies and personnel in the sheriff’s department. The county fire department and district attorney’s office will receive smaller portions of the funding. The cities’ share of Measure R will also go toward their police and fire departments.

The ballot measure language calls for annual audits of the spending and an oversight commission to ensure the tax revenue is spent properly. The ordinance also says that the tax revenue is meant to supplement, not replace, existing public safety funding from the county budget.

How did we get here?

About eight years ago, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke began calling out the staffing struggles in his department, attributing the issue to low pay. 

That was halfway through his first term in office, after gang violence spiked and Merced County saw 30 or more homicides for three years in a row.

After rallying support and putting pressure on the Board of Supervisors, the Merced Deputy Sheriff’s Association secured a 10% wage increase in 2017.

It’s been a decade since Warnke first was elected in 2014, and Merced County is facing yet another deputy shortage.

Warnke again sounded the alarm, telling county supervisors and executives that if residents called 911, he may not have any deputies to respond to the call.

Once again, deputies secured a 10% pay raise this summer through labor negotiations.

But Warnke said that raise is only enough to prevent the remaining deputies from leaving for greener pastures. It’s still not enough to attract newcomers or convince former deputies to “come home,” he said.

And after another year of 30-plus slayings in 2022, the district attorney’s office is backlogged with a high volume of cases and not enough prosecutors.

“We see this pattern without any long-term solution,” Silveira said. 

Furthermore, Merced County officials plan to close two fire stations and consolidate others on the western and eastern edges of the county.

If the county kept all 19 Cal Fire stations operational, officials estimated it would cost $6.9 million to hire 27 firefighters and meet the required staffing ratio across the board. 

Merced County has until Nov. 1 to comply with a state minimum requirement of two personnel on duty per station, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Of the 58 counties in California, Merced is the only one with Cal Fire stations falling below that threshold.

Initially, the fire stations were scheduled to close Oct. 1, but the Board of Supervisors recently voted to postpone the closures until the end of the year to await the outcome of Measure R.

It may come as a surprise that the tax proposal is coming from public safety leaders and the Board of Supervisors, considering both tend to lean conservative.

“Do I want more taxes? Heck no, I don’t want more taxes,” Warnke said in an interview with The Merced Focus. “I absolutely do not want more taxes, but the only way I can see to do this is to have a tax that is specific – and directed at, with no variation –  for public safety.”

Merced County District Attorney Nicole Silveira said she realizes that sales tax can add up for people who are financially struggling.

“I would encourage people to look at this as support for public safety,” she said. “We’re here to serve, but we do need the resources to do that.”

The Board of Supervisors held an open hearing, approved the ballot language and voted to put it on the ballot on Aug. 6, three days before the deadline to submit the ballot measure to the Registrar of Voters.

How will the money be spent?

Measure R is very prescriptive in how the money will be spent. The ordinance for the measure outlines how much each department will get, how the money will be accounted and has an expenditure plan.

About 80% of the revenue from Measure R will go to county public safety expenses for the sheriff and fire departments and the district attorney’s office. The sheriff’s department will receive more than half of that 80%, at 52%. The fire department will receive 30%, and the district attorney’s office will receive 15%. 

If the tax generates the anticipated $25 million, that means about $20 million would go to Merced County. The sheriff’s department would receive around $10 million; the fire department would receive about $6 million; and the district attorney’s office would receive about $3 million.

The other 20% – or about $5 million – will be used for grants to cities in Merced County. That money will be allocated to the incorporated cities based on population, with a minimum annual amount of $250,000 to be received by each incorporated city.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a red fire truck or a white fire truck, or if it’s a white sheriff’s car or a black police car, they just want somebody there, and so we need to make sure that somebody is there for them,” said County Supervisor Josh Pedrozo, who previously served on the Merced City Council.

County share of funds

While the measure is prescriptive, the expenditure plan does allow for some flexibility, said Silveira, who was part of the working group to author the ordinance.

The sheriff’s office can use its share of the money for hiring, recruitment and retention, creating anti gang and drug programs, improving training, acquiring, maintaining, updating and operating equipment, graffiti abatement and code enforcement, and increasing law enforcement presence in neighborhoods, parks and schools.

The fire department can use the revenue to maintain minimum staffing levels, for recruitment and retention of firefighters and support staff, maintaining equipment and apparatus, such as engines, and providing fire services to underserved areas of the county.

In the district attorney’s office, the money can be used to recruit and retain prosecutors, increase staffing for victim services, expanding intelligence units, supporting youth and crime prevention programs, and infrastructure.

While the plan is to hire more firefighters, deputies and prosecutors, Silveira also wants to improve victim’s services, such as hiring more advocates and paying them better.

“They’re the ones who make the victims whole again,” Silveira said. “They’re the ones that help them get restitution, that help them get counseling, that help them to get their lives back together after they suffer through these things that make them survivors.”

City and town program

If Measure R passes, consumers in Merced County’s incorporated cities and towns will pay the sales tax. That’s why the city and town program is written into Measure R.

Merced County has six incorporated cities: Atwater, Dos Palos, Gustine, Livingston, Los Banos and the county seat, Merced, which is the largest.

The program was written into the measure to “assist Merced County’s municipalities in providing law enforcement and fire protection services within their borders, and to better facilitate cooperation among county and city agencies as they seek to address cross-jurisdictional challenges.”

If passed, incorporated cities and towns will receive 20% of the sales tax revenue, or about $5 million. The funding for each jurisdiction will be determined by population, but no incorporated jurisdiction will receive less than $250,000.

The cities and towns can use the money for their own police and fire departments.

How will the oversight committee members be chosen?

A five-member oversight committee must meet at least once a year, and those meetings will be subject to the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law.

The committee will review auditor reports of Measure R tax revenue, evaluate projects and services provided with the revenue and make recommendations for spending priorities. 

Ultimately, the Board of Supervisors will appoint the oversight committee members. But public safety leaders will have a say, too.

The sheriff and district attorney can nominate two committee members each, and at least one of each of their nominees must be appointed, per the ordinance. 

The board also will appoint at least one person to represent the incorporated cities within the county.

Committee members must be county residents and remain so while they serve. They can’t be current employees, officials, contractors or vendors for the county. If they served in any of those capacities in the past, they can serve as long as the county counsel determines there are no conflicts of interest.

What will happen if the tax fails?

If Measure R doesn’t pass, Warnke said he fears more deputies will leave the county and crime will spike. Plus, the district attorney’s office will prosecute crimes more slowly, and the two fire stations will surely close, he said.

“That’s a heartache for me,” he said. “I’m at that point where the last thing I want is taxes, but the worst thing that can happen is I don’t have anybody to send to the calls.”

Already, Warnke said he has personally responded to personal calls he’s received on his cellphone because there was no answer when the resident called 911.

Who supports and opposes the tax?

So far, there isn’t any organized opposition to Measure R.

It’s unclear whether residents of incorporated cities with public safety taxes, such as Atwater, Los Banos and Merced, will support another tax hike.

Jesse Ornelas, an outgoing Merced City Councilmember, said he believes the sheriff’s allies will support Measure R no matter what.

“Sheriff Vern Warnke has created a political machine,” Ornelas said. “They have this blind following for public safety, where they don’t critique it, they don’t push back, they don’t ask critical questions.” 

Ornelas said he personally opposes it, though neither the city nor the city council have taken an official stance on it.

Ornelas said he doesn’t think the cities’ portion of the money will be split equitably. Plus, he said he worries Measure R will bring some cities’ tax rates too close to the state cap for sales tax and prevent them from levying additional city-specific taxes.

“I don’t know if the average taxpayer within the city of Merced realizes how much this could possibly hurt them, their children and their neighbors,” he said.

In terms of support, Warnke and Silveira are campaigning for Measure R. Plus, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to place it on the ballot, with most supervisors individually expressing their support.

The “Yes on R” campaign created the website keepmercedcountysafe.com.

The Merced Focus is part of the Central Valley Journalism Collaborative.