Los Angeles County on track to raise sales tax to 10.25%

By Chris Woodward
The Center Square

A measure to raise the sales tax to 10.25% – intended to temporarily inject funds into Los Angeles County’s public healthcare safety net – continues to have the necessary votes for passage.

The close contest for Measure ER pits support for public healthcare against criticism of the cost to consumers. Already, Los Angeles County is known for having one of the highest sales tax of any municipality in the nation. And the proposed 10.25% tax would actually climb toward 12% when combined with some of the cities’ sales taxes.

As of Thursday, 1,012,236 yes votes (50.64%) have been counted for Measure ER. So far, 986,735 no votes (49.36%) have been counted thus far. That’s according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder / County Clerk Office.

Also known as the Essential Healthcare Restoration Act, the measure is meant to last five years and generate funds to protect emergency rooms, public hospitals and community clinics from federal funding cuts to healthcare.

Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is opposed to the sales tax increase.

Vice President of Communications Susan Shelley said it will raise the cost of goods and services even higher.

“It will take the countywide sales tax in Los Angeles all the way up to 10.25%,” Shelley told The Center Square. “There are 88 cities in the county, and in many they have additional city sales taxes.”

The highest sales tax in L.A. County will be 11.75%

“That will be in Lancaster and Palmdale,” said Shelley. “Many other cities are going to be between 10.25% and 11.75% in L.A. County.”

Even without the passage of Measure ER, the total sales tax is 10.5% in the Los Angeles County cities of Monrovia, Montebello, Monterey Park and La Cañada Flintridge, home to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That’s according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Consumers pay more or less for goods depending on which side they’re standing on the border between counties. For example, consumers in Los Angeles County will pay 10.25% if Measure ER passes. Consumers in the Ventura County city of Simi Valley, right on the border with Los Angeles County, pay 7.25%.

Shelley called the increased Los Angeles County sales tax very regressive, adding that it will hit low-income people the hardest.

“Clothing, toothpaste, anything you buy in L.A. County is going to be a sales tax of minimum 10.25%,” said Shelley. “That is very regressive and very harmful when people are so concerned about affordability.”

Affordability was the No. 1 issue for most candidates running for local, state and federal offices. This includes people running for mayor, governor and congressional seats.

Meanwhile, Shelley warned that even though this was advertised heavily as being exclusively for healthcare, it is a general tax put on the ballot by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

“They had a spending plan that they put in the ballot measure ,but that’s not binding,” said Shelley. “It just says it is their intent to spend it on the following, is how the language was written, but it’s not binding.”

There is an oversight committee, but Shelley does not feel that will amount to much because the panel “can only watch them spend it” because it is a general tax that can be spent on anything.

Pointing to the measure, Shelley described that as “very deceptive,” as it was “sold to the voters as necessary to keep people from dying in the streets” of Los Angeles County.

According to Shelley, people were told trauma centers, hospitals and emergency rooms would close because of federal cuts enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“The federal government made changes in H.R. 1 last year that tighten the eligibility requirements for medical care that’s federally reimbursed, and in doing so, all they’re doing is enforcing federal law,” said Shelley. “There are no actual cuts to Medicaid. What there is, is a crackdown on various things that California’s been doing in order to get more matching funds out of the federal government, and the federal government has tightened the requirements on that.”

For counties that pay for a high volume of full scope medical care for illegal immigrants, which Los Angeles County does, that is a massive financial burden, Shelley said.

That, said Shelley, is what supporters of Measure ER are describing as cuts.

Meanwhile, she suggested citizens in other counties raise the standards to make it harder to raise taxes.

“It could be a two-thirds vote everywhere to increase taxes,” said Shelley. “That would be helpful for taxpayers to increase the need for government officials who want to raise taxes to be scrupulously careful about how much they’re requesting and what they’re going to spend it on and then to be accountable.”

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has a measure on the ballot in November that will make it harder to raise taxes. It would not have affected Measure ER, but it would affect real estate transfer taxes and taxes that are proposed by a citizens initiative.

Supporters of the Los Angeles County sales tax hike include Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County; healthcare unions and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J Mitchell.

The Center Square sought comments from McCarthy, Mitchell, SEIU Local 721, United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, Union of American Physicians and Dentists AFSCME Local 206, and LA County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) but did not receive a response by publication time.