Saratoga Should Receive Same Property Tax Percentage as Other Cities, Mayor Says

Back when Proposition 13 was approved in 1978, four California cities were hurt when the state decided to go after a big chunk of their real property tax revenue and keep it.

The city's low 1 percent property tax rate was at first advantageous, with the state telling municipalities like Saratoga, it would return to them 7 percent of property taxes collected from the city.

However, somewhere along the passage of the controversial proposition and changes made to the amount kept by the state in Sacramento, Saratoga and the cities of Cupertino, Los Altos Hills and Monte Sereno were deemed to not need the 7 percent of the funds because they were thought to not have any municipal service needs as they were assisted by Santa Clara County services and due to their high property values.

That's when the state decided to keep more of the city's property taxes lowering the amount returned to city coffers to 5 percent.

There was some additional political jockeying related to the Santa Clara County courts system and the state and county decided to further decrease the amount returned to Saratoga, Monte Sereno, Cupertino and Los Altos Hills to 3.5 percent of property taxes.

In 2006, the cities worked closely with county and state officials to come up with an agreement that essentially got the cities back to receiving a little bit more than 5 percent of moneys the state received from Saratoga property taxes, Saratoga Mayor Chuck Page explained. 

"We owe a debt of gratitude to those officials and the city council members at the time who worked on it," Page noted.

"We've been trying every year to get back the rest of it," Page said. "There is no reason that these four cities should be treated differently than all of the others, and we’re just looking for the minimum—7 percent of what the state receives in Saratoga’s property tax revenue ... We're just saying we want to be treated like every other city in the state of California."

Correction: This article has been revised. An earlier version misquoted Saratoga Mayor Chuck Page about property taxes in the city and the percentage the state pays the municipality from property taxes collected from residents. Everybody makes mistakes ... even us!  If there's something in this article that you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, give Local Editor Sheila Sanchez a ring at 408-391-8725 or shoot her an e-mail at sheila.sanchez@patch.com.