GM Bankruptcy hits home

Manteca's Sexton Chevrolet permanently closed its doors on Friday morning. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the families impacted by the closing. We had all hoped that the dealership could make it through these tough times in the auto industry, but apparently the GM bankruptcy was the last straw.

For city government, every auto dealer closing is another hit to our budget. While we aren't allowed to disclose sales tax information from individual businesses, we can tell you that the closing will have a noticeable impact on our budget. Auto sales make up about 11 percent of our sales tax revenue, and sales tax revenue is about 25 percent of our General Fund revenue. Sexton was a big contributor to our local auto sales.

Public safety sales tax dollars are not impacted by the closure. While the base one percent local sales tax stays with the community where a car is sold, tax override measures such as our public safety sales tax and county transportation tax go back to Manteca no matter where a Manteca resident purchases their vehicle. Conversely, when a non-Manteca resident purchases a car in Manteca, they don't pay the public safety tax.

Click here to read more about the closure in today's Bulletin.