Another year has passed without meaningful action to address the city’s structural budget deficit. Instead, City Council continues to mischaracterize the situation as a “revenue problem.”
After approving a record tax increase in 2025, Councilmembers and their allies are already lining up a new round of parcel taxes and bond measures. This approach ignores a well-documented reality: Berkeley operates one of the largest and most expensive city governments in California.
Rather than confront this structural imbalance, City Council’s default response has been to impose ever-higher costs on residents—without reform, prioritization, or accountability. That path is unsustainable. Given this reality, in 2026 we will focus on three core areas:
Protect affordability for Berkeley residents by stabilizing property taxes. Parcel taxes in Berkeley have been rising at an alarming rate that threatens housing stability for all but the wealthiest homeowners. In 2024 alone, Council championed two new parcel taxes and substantial increases in two existing assessments, resulting in a tax increase of as much as 25-30% for some residents. These increases present a challenge for residents’ housing budgets that are already strained due to inflation and increases in costs for utilities, trash collection, etc. The City should live within its means, just as residents have to. WOM Berkeley will advocate for:
Avoiding new taxes or fees and focus on essential services that are typically under the purview of local government. City council members have already endorsed new parcel taxes to expand public subsidies to private organizations. Others have suggested a sales tax increase and new borrowing.
Limit total cumulative annual increases to changes in the Consumer Price Index.
Document, with public input and comment, any annual percentage increases on existing taxes.
Showing appreciation to Council members when they do something we support.
Increase the cost effectiveness and productivity of city programs and services. Berkeley spends more per resident on government services than other cities in the East Bay and is among the highest in the state. Yet, Berkeley’s government performance is mediocre at best given the excessive costs. This imbalance is especially evident in the long-term degradation of streets, vital infrastructure and failing homeless services. Furthermore, Berkeley has duplicative services e.g. the public health department duplicates the services provided by the county. WOM Berkeley will advocate for:
Performance metrics for city services and benchmarking against peer cities.
Prioritizing services and identifying cuts to address the structural budget deficit.
Reducing redundancy across city departments and also in contracts with non-profit organizations.
Financial transparency and accountability of programs and services (see next item).
Increase transparency and public engagement on taxes and spending. For example, tax increases and other fees should never be passed on the Consent Calendar. Such increases should be considered as action items with the finical rationale provided. WOM Berkeley will advocate for:
Advocating for any new taxes or fees to be action items with the supporting rational and public input.
Publicly accessible dashboard and quarterly or semi-annual reporting of performance metrics for city services.
Call to Action & Our Promise to You:
We will provide more frequent email calls to action on agenda items that impact the issues above.
WOM will reach out to other like-minded community groups in Berkeley to develop relationships and collaborate on these issues.
We will invite more guest contributions to support our outreach and education efforts.
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