If U don’t remember this commission, here’s a brief refresher:
The Measure U Advisory Committee is the oversight body for the 1cent sales & use tax levied on all purchases related to the City of Sacramento. The funds generated from this tax is supposed to be used to “restore essential City services that had been cut or scaled back since 2008, including those provided by Sacramento fire, police, parks and libraries.” Measure U is a general tax, and the revenue it produces goes in the City’s General Fund and can be used for any municipal purpose. Mayor Darrell Steinberg and members of the Sacramento City Council have said new Measure U funds could be used to build and bolster an inclusive economy, grow jobs and provide housing that is affordable to all. The Measure U tax was originally a ½-cent sales tax when first approved in 2012 and was increased to a full cent in 2019, which currently generates on average $100 million per year.
Fun fact: nearly half of the funds generated by the Measure U sales tax have gone to the Sacramento Police Department since its implementation.
The Measure U team got together again on September 20th, 2021 to discuss, among other things, work plan development, strategic planning, and participatory budgeting.
At the September 20th meeting of the Measure U Community Advisory Committee, Member Cathy Cresswell gave an update on the Participatory Budget. The process has begun ramping up, and they have hired on consultants to help design and build the program.
Member Cresswell gave a rough timeline for what to expect going forward:
From now until November: they will be planning and designing the Participatory Budget program, and setting goals for its implementation.
In November and December: they will begin setting up and launching the program, including training members of the community to help implement it.
In January and February: they will be working directly with the community to discover their needs and wants, while various committees turn that information into budget proposals.
The voting on the Participatory Budget will begin in May.
The rest of the meeting was primarily discussion between Measure U Community Advisory Committee members on how to best communicate with the public on Measure U and make sure that projects which have Measure U funds are marketed as such, and discussion on what sort of goals and metrics might be useful to make sure Measure U funds are being used effectively and efficiently. No consensus was reached and no vote was held.