County Tax Collector Forgets to Place Local Property Tax on Bill for Santa Monica and Malibu Residents.

Update, Friday, October 11 – An earlier version of this story stated that the Assessor failed to correctly create the tax bill for Santa Monica. The Assessor’s office does not do billing, it assesses value of property. We regret this error.

Image: Measure R funds programs such as physical education.

The Los Angeles County Tax Collector failed to include a local property tax that helps fund schools in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District on the tax bill that was mailed to residents in the two cities. An updated bill will be available online by next Monday, October 14 and new bills will be mailed out shortly afterwards.

Voters passed SMMUSD Ballot Measure R in 2008 that placed a $346 parcel tax on properties owned in Santa Monica and Malibu with no sunset date. Measure R didn’t actually increase the tax property owners saw on their bills, it merely extended existing taxes that were set to expire.

The tax has a small cost of living increase every year, and for the current fiscal year will generate over $14.5 million in revenue for the school district that will be spent on maintaining smaller class size, arts and music programs and physical education programs.You can see a copy of the full expenditure plan at the SMMUSD website.

About The Author

Damien Newton

Damien is the executive director of the Southern California Streets Initiative which publishes Santa Monica Next, Streetsblog Los Angeles, Streetsblog San Francisco, Streetsblog California and Longbeachize.

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