City officials in Adelanto, Chino Hills and Highland, having seen their counterparts in 12 other cities cozen their residents into accepting an increase in sales tax, have set about testing whether their constituents will hold still for upping the sales tax they pay.
At the same time, while there was serious discussion in recent months about increasing the current sales tax in Victorville and Hesperia, a vote by the people of those cities to bring that about won’t occur this year.
In California historically, its residents were subject to a 2.5 percent sales tax in 1933. In 1935, California sales tax increased to 3 percent or three cents on the dollar. In 1943, the sales tax rate was knocked back to 2.5 percent.  In 1949, the state sales tax was increased to 3 percent. The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law was enacted in 1955. The law authorizes counties to impose a sales and use tax.  In 1962, the state sales tax increased to 4 percent or four cents on the dollar, based on 3 percent going to the state and 1 percent going to local governments. The same year, cities were authorized to collect up to one cent per dollar, or one percent in sales tax, if the residents of the city authorized doing so. In 1967, California’s state-imposed sales tax increased to 5 percent, with 4 percent routed to the state and 1 percent going to local governments. In 1972, the law was tweaked to drop the state’s share of property tax from 4 percent to 3.75 percent and increase the local government’s share from 1 percent to 1.25 percent, keeping the overall tax at 5 percent. In July 1973, the state sales tax was upped to 6 percent, with the state’s share increasing to 4.75 percent and the local sales tax remaining at 1.25 percent. In October 1973, the overall sales tax dropped to 5 percent, with the state’s share going down to 3.75 percent and the local share remaining at 1.25 percent. In 1974 the full sales tax was upped to 6 percent once more, with the state claiming 4.75 percent and 1.25 percent remaining for local governments. In 1989 sales tax jumped to 6.25 percent, with 5 percent going to the state and 1.25 percent remaining for the local governments. In January 1991, the state’s share of sales tax declined to 4.75 percent and the local governments were allowed to remain at 1.25 percent., for a total of 6 percent. In July 1991, California sales tax zoomed to 7.25 percent, with the state’s share standing at 6 percent and local governments entitle to 1.25 percent. In 2001, sales tax overall in California lowered to 7 percent, with 5.75 percent staying with the state and 1.25 percent going to local government. In 2002, the state upped its take of sales tax to 6 percent, while local governments claimed 1.25 percent, meaning an overall rate by the state of 7.25 percent. In 2004, the overall sales tax imposed by the state was 7.25 percent, with 6.25 percent going to Sacramento and one cent per dollar reserved for the city in which it is collected. In 2009, the sales tax collected by the state increased to 8.25 percent, with 1 percent devoted to the city in which it was collected. In 2011, the basic combined sales tax rate in California stood at 7.25 percent, with the state government claiming 6.25 percent and 1 percent staying with the city where it was collected. In 2013, the combined sales tax collected by the state reached 7.5 percent, with 1 percent returned to the city where the sale was made and Sacramento laying claim to 6.5 precent. In In 2017, the basic sales tax throughout the state was set at 7.25 percent, of which 1.25 percent is reserved for local government and six cents of tax per dollar spent going to the state government.
The earlier referenced Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law, enacted in 1955, gave California’s cities and counties the ability to impose local sales tax increases by a vote of city council or county board of supervisors. Local elected officials exercised that authority with considerable discretion as they were held in check from doing so by being subject to being voted out of office by voters who objected to the taxes. The increase in sales tax levied beyond what was imposed and collected by the state was referred to as a “tax override.” Under the Bradley-Burns framework, which authorized counties and cities to levy a local sales and use tax, typically up to 1 percent of the retail price of taxable goods, in addition to the state’s minimum sales tax. Under this arrangement, local jurisdictions could set their own rates, but the total combined state and local sales tax could not exceed a certain cap. For decades, the cap was set at 10.25 percent statewide, meaning local levies could add up to 3 percentage points above the state minimum. In 1986, Proposition 62 was passed by the state’s voters, prohibiting local agencies from imposing general taxes without majority approval of local voters or a two-thirds vote for taxes intended to fund a specifically defined purpose.
In 1989, county voters consented to imposing on themselves a one-half cent sales tax specifically for the purpose of road improvements throughout the county. The initiative under which that tax was approved was Measure I. Measure I in San Bernardino County was renewed by voters in 2004 and is on the ballot for renewal once more this year.
In this way, at a minimum, residents of unincorporated county areas of San Bernardino County and the 22 cities and two incorporated towns of 20,105-square-mile San Bernardino County and outsiders shopping there pay at a minimum 7.75 percent sales tax when purchasing taxable items.
The current basic sales tax throughout San Bernardino County at present stands at 7.75 percent, with 6 percent going to the state and 0.75 percent routed to the county, leaving 1 percent to each of the cities where the tax is collected. In those cities where a majority of the residents have agreed to tax themselves further, the city governments are enriched by their residents’ generosity.
Multiple San Bernardino County cities have over the last ten years passed tax overrides.
In 2017, the sales tax collected in Yucca Valley escalated to 8.75 percent after the city’s voters approved a one cent-per dollar sales tax override in 2016. Barstow followed suit by approving a one cent per dollar tax addition in 2018, which went into effect in 2019.
In 2020, Redlands and Victorville held votes on measures to increase the sales tax collected in those cities, which their voters approved, whereupon the sales tax collected in both of those municipalities increased from 7.75 percent to 8.75 percent in 2021. That same year, in San Bernardino, where the city, in addition to the state-collected and county-imposed sales taxes was already levying a 0.25 percent or one-quarter of a cent per dollar sales tax to augment public safety programs, residents were asked to increase the special city sales tax by three-quarters of a percent to a full cent per dollar. They did so and San Bernardino residents and shoppers there in general are now hit with an 8.75 percent sales tax. Also in 2020. in Montclair, where ta quarter cent tax override had already been put in place, the city’s voters approved upping the sales tax collected in the city by another one cent per dollar, setting the sales tax collected there at 9 percent.
Colton’s residents in 2022 approved a one-cent-per-dollar sales tax increase that went into effect in 2023, as did the voters in Ontario. In 2024, voters in Apple Valley, Fontana, Yucaipa and and in Chino went along with increasing the overall sales taxes in their municipalities to 8.75 percent.
Meanwhile, in 2022 and 2024, city officials in Upland put sales tax override measure on the ballot, which the city’s residents each time rejected.
This year, in Hesperia and in Victorville, city officials sought a consensus to place tax overrides on the November ballot. To do so in each case, placing a tax initiative before the voters required two-thirds approval, which in the case of the five-member city councils in both cities, translated into at least four votes. In Victorville, where voters in 2020 had already gone along with a tax override, there was a perception among some that the proponents of increasing the overall sales tax in the city 9.75 percent was a bit on the presumptuous side. While the sales tax initiative proposal was supported by Mayor Liz Becerra and councilwomen Tiffany Gaudin and Leslie Irving, Councilman Bob Harriman and Councilwoman Corrinne Mora were not willing to stand behind a proposal considered at at the June 15, 2026 city council meeting to increase sales tax in Victorville to a level above that of every other city in the county and at or near what would be the highest such levy in the entire state. Without a fourth vote, the request of the county registrar of voters to place the measure on the ballot died.
A similar circumstance played out in Hesperia, although there the sales tax rate has not been increased beyond the 7.75 percent collected by the state.
Councilman Chris Ochoa proposed putting a one cent-per-dollar sales tax override on the ballot in November. This week, at the last moment in order to make the application with the county registrar of voters for getting the proposal before the voters in November, the Hesperia City Council took the matter up at its July 21 council meeting.
Mayor Brigit Bennington and Councilman Josh Pullen went along with Ochoa, indicating that placing a proposed 1 percent sales tax increase on the November ballot would give the city’s voters to consider generating an estimated $15 million annually to make inroads in redressing a a $1.5 billion infrastructure deficit and enhancing public safety programs and other city services, including increase the number of sheriff’s deputies patrolling the city.
Neither Councilman Cameron Gregg nor Councilwoman Allison Lee, however, came across with the fourth vote needed to place the measure on the ballot.
The city councils in Adelanto, Chino Hills and Highland, where the total collected sales tax now stands at 7.75 percent, have called upon the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters to place measures on the November ballot that will ask residents in those cities if they will support increasing sales tax in their jurisdictions by 1 percent. Rather than referring to those as sales taxes, the ballot is to identify them as “transactions and use” taxes. They are to go into effect in each specific city if a simple majority of those voting in that separate city vote in favor of the sales tax.
In addition, the City of Needles has asked the registrar to put a measure on the November ballot pertaining to whether that city should increase the “transient occupancy tax,” that is the bed tax already charged at the city’s hotels and motels. That tax at present stands at 10 percent. If the measure to be placed on the ballot in November is given approval by the city’s voters, the tax will be increased, eventually to 14 percent. It would be implemented in three phases, with the tax increasing to 12 percent as of January 1, 2027, rise to 13 percent on January 1, 2029, and alight at 14 percent as of January 1, 2030.