WHEREAS - Watsonville California
WHEREAS - Watsonville California
WHEREAS - Watsonville California
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
With <strong>Watsonville</strong>’s high unemployment rate and with over 800<br />
<strong>Watsonville</strong> area properties in foreclosure, any further major<br />
economic reductions would be devastating to our local economy.<br />
Already, the loss of property tax, sales tax, building revenues and<br />
the 911 Emergency Services Fee has caused the General Fund’s<br />
projected operating deficit to increase to $4.5 million.<br />
County Assessor change in methodology. The latest “assessed<br />
value projections” from the Santa Cruz County Assessor for the City<br />
of <strong>Watsonville</strong> included an astounding reduction in our property tax<br />
base by almost 12% for the 2009/10 Fiscal Year. After this<br />
projection was inserted into our revenue model, it further reduced<br />
our 2009/10 General Fund revenue forecast by $760,000.<br />
While a decline of this magnitude may be in line with our<br />
impressions of our housing market, it was certainly unexpected<br />
based on recent indications received from the County Assessor.<br />
Initially, City staff was advised that the assessor’s office was<br />
finalizing their data matrix and would complete their calculations in<br />
the coming 3-4 weeks. At this time, it was indicated that (1) the City<br />
of <strong>Watsonville</strong>’s property tax base would decrease but would likely<br />
be near or less than the 1.4% reduction we already experienced for<br />
Fiscal Year 2008/09, (2) that they had decided to roll back the City’s<br />
property value base to the 2003 year and (3) that the actual<br />
reduction to <strong>Watsonville</strong> was over 10 times worse than the prior<br />
year’s 1.4% reduction.<br />
Unfortunately, what was finalized by the Assessor was entirely<br />
different from the prior indication. Instead of rolling back values to<br />
2003, the Assessor chose to reset the City of <strong>Watsonville</strong>’s property<br />
values back to 2000 levels. However, the rest of the County,<br />
including unincorporated areas in our south county area, was rolled<br />
back to only 2002 levels. In further contrast to what was set for<br />
Page 15 of 20<br />
Writer’s name 5/21/2009 10:16:05 AM<br />
P:\budget 2009_11\master budget files 09_11\Marc's wip\SR-GFBudget-overview_2009-0526-F.docx
Change language