Property owners in Marin have until April 15 to vote on whether the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control District may levy a tax to maintain “baseline” services that the district says could be disrupted by high staff salary and benefits costs within the next few years. If approved, the assessment measure will tack an additional $12.05 onto the roughly $22 property owners now pay each year to the district, raising around $3.5 million in ongoing revenue in perpetuity.
A public hearing for comments on the measure will be held on April 15, at the district’s headquarters in Cotati.
While proponents of the tax argue that it represents a small cost to save district jobs and services, critics have wondered whether the tax would have been needed if the district had managed its funds better during the recession. The tax will mostly pay for currently unfunded postemployment retiree benefits, which the Marin County Grand Jury identified in 2013 as a major source of across-the-board deficit spending among a wide range of agencies.
Ballots were mailed at the beginning of March, just after the district issued a press release warning Marin residents that several aggressive mosquito species are appearing months earlier than usual. The district attributed these early sightings to drought conditions and unseasonably warm temperatures and said they could mean an increase in the spread of West Nile virus and the district’s control-and-prevention costs.
In West Marin, the district has identified three species nearing adulthood. Last week, staff setting traps and taking samples in the marshlands near Perry’s Deli told the Light that these larvae could create a scenario of extreme discomfort from bites, allergic reactions and secondary infections.
Some in the district worry an outbreak will strain the district’s already overextended budget, with staff overtime expenses and added transportation costs eating away at just over $8 million in revenue raised last year that barely covers regular service, salaries and benefits costs. The district generates revenue predominately from ad valorum taxes and an old assessment tax capped at around $12.
The district claims that its deficit spending, if unchecked, will exhaust reserves by 2020. According to manager Phil Smith, last year the district cut into its reserves by $924,219, and he estimated it would draw another $463,328 this year, mostly to pay for unfunded pension liabilities and postemployment benefits.
Before July 2014, the district—like many other special districts in Marin—financed retiree benefits on a “pay-as-you-go” basis that drew money annually from the district’s general fund. This payment method was criticized in a 2013 grand jury report, which stated that the pay-as-you-go method forces districts to allocate funds only to current retirees and does not ensure for future benefits. Combined with an increasing rate of future retirees, the report predicted, both district services and health benefits would have to be reduced to make sure employees are compensated evenly.
Although the district’s website makes no mention that retiree benefits will be a major part of what the measure would fund, Mr. Smith said over $2 million of the $3.5 million levied would pay into a trust fund for postemployment benefits. In July, the district established a prefund plan through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to eventually replace the pay-as-you-go scheme with an ongoing, stable money source.
Already, the district has capped salaries and slashed postemployment benefits, particularly for recent hires. Employees hired after Jan. 1, 2015, receive lower-tier pension benefits and contribute a large amount of their paychecks to their own retirement health savings accounts and medical plans.
And the ability to continue drawing from reserves is diminishing, Mr. Smith said, as rising insurance, equipment maintenance, utilities, permits and gasoline costs slice into static revenue. The several million in reserves are set aside for operating capital, capital replacements, federal payroll taxes and an emergency vector-born disease fund. (According to Mr. Smith, the district does not have the ability to issue bonds or borrow money from the county or state in times of crisis.)
The proposed tax would also fund services, including seasonal staff, laboratory research into tick-borne diseases and surveillance of exotic and invasive species that can carry dengue fever and chikungunya.
Its proponents argue that a $12 tax is a small sacrifice to preserve district services. Without the additional funds generated by the proposed tax, the district said it will begin staff layoffs at the end of next year.
“It’s the cost of four or five cups of coffees,” said Lee Braun, the vice president of district’s board of trustees and Belvedere’s representative. “This is a very small amount of money for a huge benefit.”
Others oppose a more-than 50 percent rate increase, including trustee Frank Egger, the board’s Fairfax representative. Mr. Egger was one of two trustees, along with Phil Paisley, of Ross, to vote no on the measure, which passed by an 18-2 margin in February.
He also criticized how the district has managed its resources in the wake of a national recession.
“We just kept spending money like we had it,” Mr. Egger said. “We kept giving raises and we kept doing the same job and running down our reserves. What’s happening now is that the day of reckoning is coming upon us.”
Mr. Braun said the $12 hike ensures that no other measures will have to be drafted anytime soon. “We concluded that it would be unwise to include a smaller amount in the assessment and then have future trustees go through a similar process to spend a large amount,” he said.
Others have wondered why the next public hearing on the measure is schedule for the same day as the deadline for submitting ballots, on April 15. Mr. Smith stated that the public was invited to attend the board’s February meeting, prior to the ballot being mailed out, but since then there has been no other opportunity—aside from phone calls and emails—to address the district’s board and staff.
The March board meeting was cancelled, Mr. Braun said, because the board “had no business to transact.”
“It’s too bad we cancelled that meeting because maybe more people would have come,” Mr. Egger said. “The meetings are out in Cotati. Very seldom do people come to our meetings.”
Supporters of the West Marin Mosquito Council have hinted that they would vote yes on the measure if the district would renew its commitment to using only low-toxic, environmentally sensitive treatment products in West Marin. The council has held a contractual agreement with the district for over a decade that sets restrictions on which products can be used in West Marin, and it was only after a large outpouring of council supporters at a meeting in January that the district agreed to renew its contract for one year.
Mr. Smith said environmentally sensitive products represent a large service expense for the district.
“Those are great products,” he said in reference to treatment materials like Merus and a larvicide bacteria known as Bti that the council requires the district to use. “They’re just not cheap.”
However, he conceded that the district has not compared the costs of services in West Marin to other areas in the district, despite requests from the council to do so. But he also said costs for vector control in West Marin may be roughly the same as elsewhere in the district.
“Anecdotally, what I hear from people is the costs are about the same,” he said.
In emails earlier this month, the district confirmed that staff have begun using Bti to treat larvae populations found in the Bolinas Lagoon and salt-marsh areas along Tomales Bay and Dillon Beach. The district, along with the council, has advised residents to eliminate standing pools of water and to make sure that septic tanks are sealed and screened properly.