Redlands borrows up to $85M for police, fire, and library as sales-tax growth flattens
The City Council adopted its FY2027–2028 budget on June 16 and, in a separate vote minutes later, authorized certificates of participation not to exceed $85 million. The structure matters for anyone reading municipal credit: COPs are a lease-backed financing tool California cities use to fund capital projects without the two-thirds voter approval general obligation bonds require. The city expects to actually borrow closer to $75 million.
The biggest slice — roughly $58 million — goes to a new police station, the Redlands Public Safety Hall. The relocation of Fire Station No. 264 accounts for about $15 million, and library HVAC work about $1.5 million. On the police project, the city plans to add roughly $20 million in cash plus about $500,000 in development impact fees, bringing that facility alone to an estimated $78 million.
Annual debt service runs about $5 million starting in fiscal 2029, once construction wraps, with total payments projected at roughly $142.9 million over the life of the financing including interest.
That debt lands on a softening revenue base. City Manager Charles Duggan Jr. told the council property-tax growth has slowed to about 4% a year and general sales-tax growth has flattened to 1–2%, down from the post-pandemic surge. Measure T, the local sales tax voters passed in 2020, has held around $20.5 million a year rather than climbing with inflation. The city is funding long-lived public-safety assets with multi-decade debt at the same moment its most economically sensitive revenue stream stops growing — a squeeze that shows up as roughly $5 million a year in fixed debt service starting in 2029, money unavailable for staffing or services regardless of how the economy turns.
Redlands isn't alone in the buildout. Rialto broke ground in 2024 on a roughly $83 million station financed largely through lease-revenue bonds with about $26 million in city equity. Riverside has budgeted $62 million for a new downtown police headquarters, up from an initial $59.5 million estimate, with construction set to begin this year. Across the region, IE cities are converting operating-era public-safety facilities into debt-financed capital projects — a wave of fixed obligations being locked in just as the sales-tax base that has to service them flattens.