Measure G: where the money went.

The capital collapse

New Measure G capital appropriations peaked in the tax’s first full budget year and never returned to that level; the closest any later year came was FY 2023–24, at $9.39 million, about 59% of the peak. By FY 2025–26 the city appropriated no new Measure G capital at all — the only capital lines that year release unspent balances from projects back into the fund.

1. 1

   The police building was over-budgeted by $14.5 million

   Across ten budget years — FY 2015–16 through FY 2024–25 — Measure G budgets set aside $45,579,900 for public-safety-building debt service ($51.6M including FY 2025–26). Actual debt service came to $31,093,821 — a cumulative $14,486,079 more budgeted than was owed. The audited financial statements contain no pledge of Measure G revenue to that debt. In FY 2021–22 the city made a $7,635,000 prepayment on the debt — a prepayment neither the audits nor any staff report explains, authorizes, or mentions. Police is also the single largest cumulative use of Measure G at $77,349,899 budgeted — the largest department for the tax’s first seven years, until Public Works overtook it in FY 2022–23.

2. 2

   The oversight record is three retrievable reports in eleven years

   Measure G came with a citizens’ oversight committee. Searching the city’s published record turns up three retrievable citizen oversight reports across the eleven years the tax has been collected. Separately, the audited financial statements never itemize where the money transferred out of Measure G actually goes. The destinations listed in the year-by-year panel above come from the Fund Transfers schedules of the adopted budget books — the plan, not the outcome. Where that itemized total and the audited transfers-out figure disagree, the gap is adopted plan versus audited actual.

3. 3

   Renewal is on the ballot before the tax expires

   Measure G is scheduled to sunset on April 1, 2030. A renewal goes before Salinas voters on November 3, 2026 — more than three years early. Measure G is a general tax, which means its revenue is not legally restricted to any of the purposes named in the ballot question. See the voter cheat sheet for what is on the ballot and when. A committee named “Keep Salinas Strong and Safe: Committee to Renew Measure G” has filed 2026 campaign statements; see its 2026 Money page.

What it was supposed to cost, and what it did cost

The police facility has four different price tags in the public record, and they were published five years apart. None of them was ever reconciled against another in a City document.

On the last row. The $8,009,875 appears on a report captioned “Measure G Funding — One-Time CIP Expenditures.” It is not established that these are Measure G cash dollars on top of the debt: the audited trace finds that construction ran as a separate project funded from bond proceeds, while the City’s own Measure G expenditure reporting carries the line. staff-reported The published documents do not resolve which is correct, and this page does not add the two together.

What the money shows

1. 1

   The budget exceeds the debt by $14,486,079

   Across ten budget years, FY 2015–16 through FY 2024–25, Measure G budgets set aside $45,579,900 for police building financing — $51,567,300 including FY 2025–26. council record Actual debt service paid on the bonds over the same period was $31,093,821, being $22,230,000 of principal and $8,863,821 of interest. audited statement The cumulative excess is $14,486,079, meaning the budgets set aside roughly 47% more than the debt service actually paid over those ten years. inferred

2. 2

   The excess is provably not in the fund that pays the debt

   The debt service fund’s balance was $0 on June 30, 2018 and $0 on June 30, 2025, and it never exceeded $14,939 in any year in between. Its seven-year roll-forward closes to exactly zero: $31,287,611 transferred in, plus $272,610 of investment income, minus $31,560,221 of expenditures. audited statement inferred The over-budgeted money never accumulated in the fund that pays the debt.

   Where it did go cannot be determined from public documents. Every audited statement reports Measure G’s transfers out only inside a blended “General Fund” aggregate, so a Measure G transfer to any other destination would be invisible. audited statement Three explanations survive the record — the money never left the Measure G fund; it left for a destination other than the debt fund; or the staff figure is an accounting artifact — and the published documents cannot choose between them. Closing the question requires the City’s general-ledger interfund detail, which is not published.

3. 3

   A $7,635,000 prepayment that no document explains

   In FY 2021–22 the City retired $10,410,000 of principal against $2,775,000 scheduled — $7,635,000 of extra principal in a single year. audited statement The outstanding balance dropped from $46,185,000 to $35,775,000 and the maturity schedule shortened accordingly. audited statement The effect was to eliminate roughly $9.8 million of future debt service. inferred

   Neither the audits nor any staff report explains, authorizes, or even mentions the prepayment. audited statement staff-reported The 2018 financing plan had contemplated a City equity contribution of $8,298,000 council record — but no document in the record connects that plan to what happened in FY 2021–22, and this page does not connect them either.

4. 4

   Before the bonds existed, $17,031,000 was appropriated and $3,893,484 was drawn

   From FY 2015–16 through FY 2018–19 the City budgeted $17,031,000 to CIP project 9244, the Measure G police-facility debt service line — three years of it before any debt existed. council record The City’s own project reporting shows that line at 0% spent in FY 2015–16, 0% in FY 2016–17 and 0% through December 31, 2017, then a single draw of $3,892,484 in FY 2017–18 and $1,000 in FY 2018–19. staff-reported Life-to-date $3,893,484 — a figure that never moves again through FY 2024–25. $13,137,516, or 77.1%, was never drawn, inferred and $931,722 was still carried unspent seven years after issuance before being de-appropriated in FY 2025–26. staff-reported These were appropriations, not payments; the undrawn $13,137,516 never left the Measure G fund for this purpose.