Will city voters go for a new 1% public safety tax to preserve the ‘Clovis way of life?’

Since the Great Recession, the city of Clovis has been in a slump. When the 2008 global financial crisis hit town, the city laid off 10-20% of its police and firefighters to keep its budget afloat. After the fall of Lehman Brothers, the city’s economic engine – suburban sprawl – never roared again like the boom days of 2005. As a result, the city never hired all those firefighters completely back.

Now, 15 years later, city officials say a public safety crisis is brewing at the edge of town. Emergency response times in the new subdivisions are almost twice those of the legacy ones and five minutes slower than the fire department’s drop-dead standard. The city’s firefighters are getting stretched to the brink.

This fall, the city is pinning its hopes on a return to normal for police and fire – with a new 1% Clovis sales tax.

The City Council voted on Monday for a new Clovis sales tax to be put on the ballot this November for city voters. If approved by Clovis residents, it would raise the total sales taxes paid by local residents by 12.5%, raising $28 million a year, city officials estimate. 

Police and fire captains framed the issue on Monday night as one about the basic meaning of home. In the city’s post-2008 economic reality, ignoring the costs of sluggish property and sales tax revenue growth rates could become a matter of life or death, they said.

“The Clovis way of life is not just a slogan, it’s a standard,” said fire Chief Trent McGill. “Think about the reason why you moved to Clovis, the other things that have been afforded to you along the way, and essentially want to keep it that way. Decide [whether] we want to keep Clovis, Clovis.”

‘Insufficient resources’

As a rationale for the new Clovis sales tax, city officials described how government revenues have not kept up with the cost of hiring new police and firefighters, which would be the main focus of the tax. About 87% of the city’s general fund goes towards police and fire, and officials forecast a $14 million general fund deficit by 2028 without the tax.

“We have insufficient resources to maintain our current operations,” said John Holt, city manager.

If approved by voters, the new Clovis sales tax would bring the city’s overall sales and use tax rate would limb to 8.975%, tying Clovis with seven other cities — Coalinga, Fowler, Huron, Kerman, Kingsburg and Parlier — with the second-highest tax rates in Fresno County. Reedley and Mendota have the highest sales tax in Fresno County at 9.225% each.

Since 2013, property tax growth in Clovis has outpaced Los Angeles, Fresno, and Bakersfield, according to data from the state Board of Equalization. Property tax receipts have gone up 101% in Clovis, versus 74% in Fresno, 75% in Bakersfield and 86% in Los Angeles. 

However, even this growth has not been enough. Police staffing levels are at the same point today as in 2007 – when Clovis had 40% fewer people. The Clovis police department has become stretched so thin, said one police officer, that Fresno gangs are using Clovis as a sanctuary city.

“This is not the same Clovis as I grew up with,” said Jordan Hunter, president of the Clovis Police Officers Association. “I recently spoke to a validated criminal street gang member, he told me, ‘Fresno gang members come to the city of Clovis because it’s safer to hang out and party in Airbnbs.”

At the high water mark for police and fire, the city had 68 firefighters and 110 police officers. Police staffing levels only returned to 2007 levels this year, and firefighters have yet to rebound. The city has been hiring 4-5 new police officers per year over the last half-decade, according to data shared at the meeting.

A major cause of the staffing shortage and sluggish response times has been the over approval of sprawl since the recession. Growth rates have been anemic, at the same time as the city has approved subdivisions at nearly every corner of the city. 

Monday night’s discussion highlighted a broader feature of the region’s economy: Developers are choosing to build in new parts of town with less overall development and more vacant fields.

For example, as Clovis looks to build on Shepherd Avenue in the northeast corner of town, post-2000 neighborhoods are being too slowly developed to build fire stations there in a timely fashion, said McGill, the police chief.

In Loma Vista, the new area of town that Clovis East high school paved the way for in 2000, only reached 60% build out in 2022, McGill said.

“We did not open fire station services individually until 2022,” McGill said. “[The] growth of the city has expanded our footprint, making it harder to get from point A to point B.” 

In the new parts of north and south Clovis, it’s over 10 minutes for emergency response times, according to fire department data.

“We have a problem here in Clovis. We’ve never really recovered since the recession in 2008,” said Donna Snow, a Clovis resident. “The time is imperative that we move forward.”