So you’ve made it past the November 5th ballot, beyond the race for the White House and the contests for Congress and state legislative seats.

The following pages cover most of the local ballot, including races for city council, school board and special district seats that help decide who runs local government.

And then there are the tax questions.

All Sonoma County voters are being asked to decide the fate of at least two sales tax measures that would go into effect across the region.

Voters in Sonoma, Sebastopol and Cloverdale also have a third municipal sales tax increase on the ballot.

And many voters from across the county will chime in school bonds — there are nine in all — that aim to raise a total of $584 millionon, mostly to fund campus upgrades through an annual surcharge on property tax bills.

Beyond that, there are a pair of state bond initiatives, including Prop. 2, which would raise additional tax money to pay for K-12 upgrades and community colleges and Prop. 4, which would pay for new climate resilience, water and wildfire protection projects.

Fiscal measures at the county level

But let’s get back to local fiscal measures. Sonoma County, seven existing countywide sales tax measures that voters have approved and expanded since 1990.

The last of these measures, a half-cent sales tax to raise additional money for fire protection and fire personnelwent into effect this month. It increased the sales tax charged to consumers countywide by 0.5 percentage points, the equivalent of 50 cents for every $100 spent.

In this election, voters are being asked to renew one of the existing levies supporting the county library system and add another levy to expand child care staff and programs and strengthen children’s health care services.

Renewal of the library system fee, Measure W, wants an indefinite extension of the eight-cent sales tax, which helped expand staff and hours and pay for upgrades at its 15 branches.

The original sales tax measure, Measure Y, passed in 2016 with 72% of voters in support. It has raised about $16 million a year — about $85 million to date — and the revenue stream now makes up about 40 percent of the library’s operating budget.

The measure has two years of funding left, so the renewal could return to the budget if Measure W falls short of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to pass.

The second of the county’s sales tax measures is a proposed quarter-cent increase that would raise more than $30 million annually to support local child care and affordable health care programsaccording to the Santa Rosa campaign. With no expiration date, it will remain in effect until voters overturn it through another ballot measure.

Measure I proposes to direct 60% of revenue to childcare, including employee pay, workforce growth and expanding the childcare network as a whole. The remaining 40 percent would go toward early childhood health and development programs, including perinatal and early mental health, pediatric screening and treatment, and assisting children experiencing issues such as homelessness.

It has no formal opposition and only needs a simple majority to pass because it reached the vote through a signature collection campaign.

City sales taxes on the ballot

in Sonoma, Measure Tis a proposal to raise the half-cent sales tax to fund basic city services and address deficit at the City Hall.

It would raise the city’s sales tax rate from 9.5 percent to 10 percent — and the countywide Measure I would go to 10.25 percent, hitting the current state cap for Sonoma County and its cities.

Measure T would generate an additional $3 million annually to provide funding for public safety, affordable housing programs and the creation of a parks and recreation department, which Sonoma does not have.

City votes passed a similar half-cent general-purpose sales tax increase in 2012 and extended it to 2016 and 2020, without sunset. Measure T would also remain in place until repealed by voters if placed on a future ballot by the City Council or a citizen initiative.

In Cloverdale, voters are being asked to approve a three-quarter-cent sales tax increase to help repair streets, improve parks and open space, and fund public safety staffing and response. The city is one of two in the county, along with Windsor, without a voter-approved municipal sales tax.

Measure DD would change that if approved by a simple majority of voters. It is estimated to generate about $1.66 million per year.

Currently, Cloverdale’s sales tax rate is 9 percent, with more than half of the revenue going to the state government and the rest split between various county agencies. The state gives about $1.1 million of its sales tax share back to Cloverdale each year, City Manager David Kelley said.

In Sevastopol, Measure Ua proposed half-cent sales tax growth, could bring $1.52 million a year to a city facing one of its worst fiscal crises in decades.

The measure requires a simple majority vote and would expire after 12 years.

The City Council has signaled it will spend most of the revenue, about 60 percent, on public safety and response personnel. The rest could go toward projects including fire and emergency preparedness, street or road maintenance, parks and trails, a new library building, youth and senior services, retaining and attracting local businesses, and for general use.

The city, which already has two voter-approved sales taxes, faces a potential conflict with the sales tax cap if countywide Measure I is passed. For more on this Legal collision course, go here.