The Stockton City Council approved placing a three-quarter cent sales tax measure on the city’s November ballot in a 7-0 vote on Tuesday night.
The tax would increase revenue to help the city exit from bankruptcy and to increase spending on public safety.
“We have debated these fundamental issues in these Council chambers over the months,” said councilmember Moses Zapien. “It is now time to move the debate from City Hall to the community and put it in the hands of the voters.”
If the measure is approved, the tax will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, halfway through the city’s fiscal year.
Stockton’s sales tax is currently at 8.25%.
The city estimates that the tax would bring in about $14 million in the first fiscal year, and $28 million per year in the future.
The vote comes almost a year after Stockton, a city of 300,000 in California’s Central Valley, became the largest city in the country to file for bankruptcy, and three months after a judge ruled that the city could enter bankruptcy.
About 65% of the new revenue would go toward public safety programs and the rest would be used for bankruptcy recovery and restoring the city’s finances.
