SLO County voters will not be asked to raise their sales taxes to help fix roads.
The San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) had been seeking to raise sales taxes to provide a pool of money that could be leveraged to get more State and Federal tax monies.
But SLOCOG did an about-face and requested the Board of Supervisors pull it from consideration.
Measure H would have added a 0.5-percent sales tax hike throughout SLO County.
“Following additional review and community feedback,” reads an Aug. 5 press release from SLOCOG, “the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments Board voted today to request removal of Measure H from the November 2026 ballot.
“The decision means SLOCOG will not move forward with Measure H. This measure would have allowed voters in San Luis Obispo County to consider a half-cent sales tax dedicated to local transportation improvements.”
The timing was apparently not good to ask voters to increase their taxes.
“With an emphasis on responsible financial stewardship,” the release said, “the SLOCOG Board determined it was not the right time to move forward with the cost of placing Measure H on the ballot. Continued community engagement led by the citizens group ‘Better Roads for All SLO County’ also indicated economic concerns and uncertainty among residents could present challenges to the measure’s success.”
As a special tax, Meas. H would have needed to garner two-thirds majority to win approval. A previous attempt by SLOCOG to raise a sales tax for roads several years ago fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed.
Measure H was promoted as a way to raise local transportation monies and make SLO County more attractive for State and Federal competitive grant monies to come here.
It would have meant joining more than half of California’s other Counties with a local source of funding. SLOCOG’s director said the need for the taxes remains.
“The work around Measure H helped bring important transportation needs into focus,” SLOCOG Executive Director Pete Rodgers said, “and we are grateful to everyone who participated in that process. SLOCOG will continue working with cities, the County, and community partners to pursue funding solutions.
“Unfortunately, until a measure like this is voted on and passes, we will not be able to meet the desired transportation needs of our local communities.”
It should be noted that SLOCOG had to go to the State Legislature to get a special law passed that allowed for its sales tax increase to move forward. This is because State Law limits the amount of local sales taxes that could be approved in any given county or city and at least two of the seven SLO County cities — Morro Bay and Pismo Beach — are already near to that limit. The special law gave an exception for SLOCOG to attempt to pass the countywide sales tax increase.
Over the past several months, SLOCOG representatives have made presentations to City Councils showing a work program suggesting the ways in which the additional money would be split. That included a percentage going back to the cities for their local road repair programs. The idea was to seek support from the local government bodies and hope that translated to support at the polls.
SLOCOG did not indicate how much these lobbying efforts cost, nor when a similar tax increase might come back for voters to consider.
