Small desert town plots hated tax hike as it plunges into financial armageddon

Tiny Arvin could soon hit shoppers with an even bigger tax bill.

Residents of the Kern County city may have to shell out more at the cash register if voters approve a proposed 1% sales tax hike in November after the City Council unanimously voted last week to put the measure on the ballot.

Mayor Olivia Calderon is pitching the tax increase as a lifeline for the cash-strapped city, arguing it would help tackle Arvin’s long-running budget deficit. City officials estimate the hike would generate roughly $2 million in additional annual revenue.

Arvin City has not seen an increase in sales tax in the last 18 years. Facebook/ArvinCalifornia/

Arvin is staring down a $1.4 million structural deficit, resulting from years of slow economic progress. Calderon said that the city’s reserve should ideally be 25% of the budget, which would be about $2 million, but the city reports reserves at less than $300,000.

Mayor Olivia Calderon said Arvin is in severe financial crisis. arvin.org

“The city has grown. The city has changed. The city has aging infrastructure. And we get to save ourselves, Arvin. No one is going to save us but us. Every single one of us who calls Arvin our home we get to step up, and we get to save ourselves,” Calderon said, as reported by Bakersfield Now. If voters vote for the increase, the sales tax would go from 8.25% to 9.25%.

Arvin hasn’t raised its sales tax since 2008, according to Calderon — but she said the city’s bills have only ballooned since then.

Among the biggest budget-busters, she pointed to a 20% pay hike for Arvin police under an out-of-contract agreement, Kern County Fire costs that have surged from $1 million to $1.4 million, and a cease-and-desist order that has hampered new sewer connections and slowed growth.

The city is currently relying on revenue from 2008’s Measure L, which added a 1% sales tax. More than 80% of the money generated by the measure goes toward public safety, with the remainder funding parks and public works projects.

What’s being billed as a collective community effort to save the city doesn’t have everybody onboard.

Esteban Pineda Aguilar has lived in Arvin for 30 years and fears that the increased sales tax would pinch pockets of those who are already struggling.

“But if they raise taxes, prices will go up, and we’re back to where we are,” Pineda Aguilar told ABC earlier this month.

“What we make is only to survive,” she added.

Arvin went so far as to spend $26,000 to bring in a Democratic campaign strategy firm to educate voters about the ballot measure in both Spanish and English.