This summer, city staff publicly painted a dire picture of Fullerton’s projected financial outlook and a spending deficit that is expected to pass the $20 million mark in three years – threatening to wreak havoc on public services.
The college town has been grappling with rocky budgets for years by regularly cutting spending – even landing on the state auditor’s list of top 20 cities most likely to face financial turmoil.
Now, city officials are looking to residents to help solve long standing budgetary woes.
Last week, city council members narrowly voted 3-2 at their public meeting to form an ad hoc committee made up of five residents to meet monthly from September to May 2025 and suggest ways to improve city finances.
“The idea of this committee is to take a really holistic view, a very broad ranging view of possible options that they could put in front of a future Council,” said Councilwoman Shana Charles, who brought forth the proposal.
“I feel like we have so much untapped resources in the city of people coming up with other ideas that might be useful for us.”
Mayor Nick Dunlap and Councilman Bruce Whitaker were the dissenting votes.
Dunlap said the work of brainstorming new ways to bring in revenue should be done by city staff and the council, not a committee.
“I guess I’m just not really seeing the need for this commission,” he said at the Aug. 6 meeting. “This is a kind of growing government and not something I really support.”
Councilman Ahmad Zahra agreed with Dunlap but supported forming a committee to keep conversations on revenue generation flowing.
“This is a decision that should be a council decision. If we are to ask the public what they want there is a system for that. It is called the ballot,” Zahra said. “I think ultimately the outcome is going to be that we need money and we have to consider some form of tax revenue.”
Incoming Sales Tax Increase?
The vote in Fullerton comes as city officials across Orange County approve putting sales tax increase measures on the November ballot amid deficits millions of dollars deep and as municipal spending on public safety outpaces revenue.
[Read: New Taxes? Increasing Revenue in Orange County Amid Budget Shortfalls ]
Fullerton City Councilman Fred Jung pointed to cities moving forward with sales tax increase measures like Buena Park, La Habra and Orange and said the committee will be important to get resident input on new ways to generate revenue – something they haven’t been good at in the past.
“It’s a better way for us to progress on this issue and find some long term revenue and funding generators that will solve some of our budgetary issues that all of us in Orange County – municipality-wise –are facing, as we just have so many liabilities that we have to fund on our end,” he said at the Aug. 6 meeting.
Dunlap said the city should just call the group the “ad hoc sales tax increase committee.”
“It doesn’t seem to have a more robust component than just trying to figure out how to jam a sales tax increase,” he said.
While there has been no formal discussion on putting a sales tax increase on the November ballot, the council in June floated the idea of raising the local hotel tax by 2% to bring in an additional $600,000 a year.
Charles said the formation of a committee does not necessarily mean a sales tax increase measure will be put on a future ballot.
“If we end up in a place where the sales tax ends up being the option that is agreed on by the committee and is something that really has been examined, well then we’ll have the evidence also to look at that,” she said
“I’m absolutely open to the idea that that is not where we’re going to end up. I don’t think it is a pre-foregone conclusion here.”
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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