The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors (BOS) has tentatively scheduled a Truth in Taxation hearing on August 3, 2022, followed by a Special Meeting to set the Fiscal Year 2023 Primary and Secondary tax rates, adopt the budget, and adopt tax rates for county-wide fire and school districts.
A tentative budget was adopted by the Board on July 5 which is slightly more than $20 million higher than last year, mostly due to an increase in actual or anticipated state and federal grants. Unfunded state mandates total about $750,000 for retirement, health care, liability insurance and state long term care for residents lacking ability to pay for services. The BOS tentatively adopted the staff recommendation of 6% cost of living increase for employees across the board which would total $655,000.
The Board also tentatively adopted the staff proposal to keep the current primary and secondary tax rates with no increase or decrease. Residents with increased property valuations (which serve as the base for applying the tax rates) will see an increase in taxes of about $9.86 per $100,000 of assessed value for the primary and secondary tax.