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While the foundation running the Oakland Zoo already collects public subsidies and gives away part of its ticket income to other organizations, it now wants city voters to boost its annual revenues by $12 million annually through a new property tax.

Measure Y on the Nov. 8 ballot would tax Oakland homeowners for 20 years starting at $68 annually per residential unit — an amount that could increase, using an unusual escalator, more than the consumer inflation rate. Non-residential properties would be taxed more based on a parcel’s frontage distance and square footage.

It’s an audacious and greedy tax grab in a city where property owners already are excessively burdened with special levies. And it’s especially unfair because only about 15% of the zoo’s visitors come from Oakland. At a minimum, this should have been a countywide measure rather than foisting the entire burden on Oakland residents.

Most of us love the zoo. But don’t be fooled by mailers showing adorable pictures of kids petting animals, adorable big-eyed felines or veterinarians performing operations. This is a horrible tax proposal. Vote no on Measure Y.

The measure would provide a huge financial increase for the Conservation Society of California, the foundation that runs the city-owned zoo. The tax at the start would raise about $12 million a year, boosting annual funding by about 46% to roughly $38 million. Meanwhile, other treasured Oakland venues that serve children, such as Fairyland at Lake Merritt and the Chabot Space and Science Center, would get none of the new money.

The foundation already collects more than $2.3 million in subsidies each year from Oakland property taxes, a share of hotel taxes and from the city general fund. And while it claims it needs a huge taxpayer bailout to operate the zoo, it’s literally giving away money.

Zoo gives away money

According to its nonprofit filing with the IRS, the Conservation Society doled out $430,981 in the year ending Sept. 30, 2021, to groups around the country and the world to save animals from extinction. The source of the money is 50 cents from each admission ticket and $2 from each membership, according to Nik Dehejia, the CEO of the organization.

While saving animals from extinction is a noble cause, the contributions are inconsistent with the group’s purpose of keeping the zoo running, its insistence that it needs more money, and the quest for already strapped taxpayers to foot the bill. And the foundation certainly should not be diverting money from admissions revenues to support other causes.

If members of the foundation want to give away money, they should form a group completely separate from the zoo and raise money independently. They should not leverage the zoo to support other causes.

Yet, the foundation’s annual contributions to other organizations have quadrupled in the past four years, according to the IRS filings. Those contributions are not disclosed in the ballot material asking voters to approve new taxes. Dehejia says they will continue if Measure Y passes.

How tax would increase

Meanwhile, zoo officials say they will use some of the Measure Y tax revenues to subsidize free and discounted visits by city residents. But there is no language in the initiative that requires that.

Instead, Measure Y allows the money to be spent on any zoo-related operations, staffing, maintenance, capital improvements or administrative expenses. Zoo officials provided us only a sketchy, and nonbinding, outline of how they would spend the money.

Measure Y also contains an unusual escalator provision for the $68 rate. It requires the City Council to increase the tax annually by a percentage up to the greater of the increase in the Bay Area Consumer Price Index, which is common in ballot measures, or California’s per-capita personal income, which is unusual.

Over the past four years the Bay Area CPI increased at an average 4.0% annually, while state per-capita personal income rose at an average 6.9%. If, for example, the city had applied the actual annual increases for the past four years to the proposed Measure Y tax, it would have resulted in a $77 levy using the Bay Area CPI and an $89 rate using the less-common personal income rate.

Of course, that difference would magnify over longer periods of time, especially because Measure Y calls for the council to each year apply the index with the greater increase. That cherry-picking would increase the tax more than sticking to one of the indexes.

Trust and transparency

The foundation currently receives about $15 million of its roughly $26 million annual budget from entrance fees and membership, according to Dehejia. Other sources are concessions and rides, philanthropy, education programs and the more than $2.3 million in Oakland tax subsidies.

If Measure Y passes, the total budget would increase to $38 million, of which more than $14 million would come from current city subsidies and the new tax. And the tax contribution would grow each year.

Even though there are few restrictions on how the Measure Y money could be spent, Dehejia says residents and taxpayers should trust him and other zoo officials to use the money wisely.

But Dehejia won’t reveal something as basic as his own compensation. He took over as CEO in April 2021. His predecessor’s compensation was about $315,000 during the prior fiscal year, according to the filing for that year. Dehejia refused to say how much he’s receiving, even though the foundation will eventually have to report it.

So much for transparency and building trust. The only thing voters should trust is what’s written in the initiative. And that’s not enough to protect taxpayers.

This is not about whether the zoo is an asset for Oakland residents or the entire East Bay. It is. This is about the unfairness of placing the entire tax burden on one city’s property owners, the excessive magnitude of the revenues and the annual tax increases, and the lack of proper safeguards to prevent zoo money from being diverted elsewhere.

Vote no on Measure Y.