The Workshop
A working collection of resident-proposed revenue ideas for Palos Verdes Estates — things that could be done in conjunction with, or as alternatives to, an increased parcel tax. Plus a look at how comparable Southern California cities handle their finances and CalPERS obligations.
About this page
These ideas come from residents speaking at city meetings, posting in online forums, and submitting suggestions to this site. They are not official city proposals, they have not been vetted for legal or financial feasibility, and being listed here is not an endorsement. The goal is to widen the conversation beyond a single parcel-tax vote and give neighbors a menu of options to discuss, refine, or push back on.
Have an idea you'd like added? Scroll to the bottom for how to submit one.
What's on This Page
How PVE Compares to Similar Cities
PVE is often described as financially unique: almost entirely residential, very little commercial tax base, and a small share of each property-tax dollar staying in the city. To test that, we pulled the most recent Annual Comprehensive Financial Reports (ACFRs / CAFRs) for three comparable Southern California cities:
- San Marino — often cited as PVE's closest financial peer (small, affluent, residential).
- Manhattan Beach — wealthy coastal city, notable for issuing Pension Obligation Bonds (POBs) to pay down CalPERS unfunded liability.
- Rolling Hills Estates — PVE's Peninsula neighbor; useful as a same-geography comparison.
Side-by-Side: FY 2025 Snapshot
| Metric | Palos Verdes Estates | San Marino | Manhattan Beach | Rolling Hills Estates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population | ~13,000[1] | 12,330[2] | 34,051[3] | 8,545[4] |
| General Fund Balance (end of FY 2025) |
$24.9M[1] | $23.3M[2] | $30.5M[3] | $4.5M[4] |
| Property Taxes (FY 2025 collected) |
$13.3M[1] | ~$14.0M[2] | $45.8M[3] | $4.55M[4] |
| Sales Tax | Minimal | ~$695K[2] | Significant[3] | $1.64M[4] |
| Hotel (TOT) Tax | None | None | $9.0M[3] | None |
| Public Safety Parcel Tax | $5.1M (Measure E)[5] | None | None | None |
| Net Pension Liability (GASB 68, FY 2025) |
$19.7M[1] | $44.3M[2] | $19.5M*[3] | $5.6M[4] |
| Pension Obligation Bonds? | No | No | YES — ~$76M outstanding[3] | No |
| Section 115 Pension Trust? | Mentioned as option[1] | YES — since FY 2020–21 (CERBT); $1.0M held[2] | YES[3] | — |
* Manhattan Beach's net pension liability of ~$19.5M is the figure after the city issued ~$76M in Pension Obligation Bonds to pre-fund its CalPERS unfunded liability. Before the POB strategy, the underlying pension obligation was dramatically larger.
Where Each City's Revenue Actually Comes From
These pie charts show each city's revenue mix for FY 2024–25 (year ended June 30, 2025). PVE's chart is drawn from General Fund revenues (the figures on our Finances page); the other three are governmental-activities revenues pulled from each city's ACFR Management’s Discussion & Analysis. Categories vary slightly between cities because each ACFR groups them differently — the story is in the shapes.
Palos Verdes Estates
San Marino
Manhattan Beach
Rolling Hills Estates
Observations: PVE is the only city where a parcel tax (Measure E, ~21% of General Fund) shows up as a major slice — everywhere else that wedge is filled by sales tax, hotel tax, or a utility user tax. San Marino's revenue is the most property-tax-heavy (~55% when counting Property Tax in Lieu of VLF). Manhattan Beach is the most diversified, with significant charges-for-services and a substantial "other taxes" slice driven by sales tax and transient occupancy (hotel) tax. Rolling Hills Estates leans heavily on operating grants and intergovernmental revenue (~21%) because it contracts out major services like policing.
What Stands Out
San Marino is PVE's closest demographic peer — but its pension hole is more than 2× as deep.
Population, residential character, and limited commercial base are nearly identical to PVE. San Marino's net pension liability sits at $44.3M — more than double PVE's $19.7M. To address it, San Marino set up a Section 115 Trust with CalPERS's CERBT program in FY 2020–21 and holds about $1.0M in that account as of June 30, 2025.[2] That's a modest amount relative to the liability, but the structural point is the vehicle: once established, the city can make discretionary deposits that grow tax-free and are earmarked for pension costs.
Manhattan Beach's Pension Obligation Bond strategy is worth studying — carefully.
Manhattan Beach issued roughly $76 million in Pension Obligation Bonds to pre-fund a large portion of its CalPERS unfunded liability.[3] The thesis: borrow at a lower fixed interest rate, hand the proceeds to CalPERS, and earn CalPERS's higher assumed investment return on the money — pocketing the spread if markets cooperate.
The catch: POBs are a bet. If CalPERS investment returns underperform the bond's interest rate, the city loses money on the spread and is still on the hook for bond payments. The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) has formally advised against POBs for this reason. Manhattan Beach's case is also not directly comparable to PVE's — MB has a much larger revenue base (property tax alone is ~$45.8M vs. PVE's $13.3M), a $9M hotel tax stream, and 34,000 residents spreading the risk. Any PVE conversation about POBs would need to weigh those differences honestly.
Rolling Hills Estates sits at the other extreme.
RHE's pension liability is just $5.6M[4] — a fraction of PVE's — largely because the city contracts with the LA County Sheriff for police services rather than operating its own department. That's directly relevant to the Peninsula-wide consolidation idea listed below: RHE effectively already made that choice.
The revenue-mix story
Of the four, PVE is the only city without meaningful sales tax, hotel tax, or utility user tax revenue. San Marino has modest sales tax (~$695K). Rolling Hills Estates has $1.64M in sales tax from its commercial corridor. Manhattan Beach has all three, plus $9M in hotel tax. PVE covers the gap almost entirely through the Measure E parcel tax — which is precisely why the expiration of Measure E creates such a sharp fiscal cliff, and why diversification ideas (below) are getting serious attention.
All figures sourced from each city's FY 2025 ACFR (year ended June 30, 2025). See References for document links and specific page citations.
Conservative / Near-Term Ideas
Lower-risk ideas that could be explored now without a ballot measure, dramatic structural change, or heavy political lift.
1. Professionalize cost management through shared services
PVE could pursue joint purchasing agreements and shared back-office functions (IT, HR, permitting software, fleet maintenance) with the other three Peninsula cities. None of them are large enough to achieve economies of scale alone, but together they represent a meaningful purchasing bloc. This doesn't generate revenue, but it bends the cost curve — and it's politically easy because it doesn't touch police, fire, or parkland.
2. Maximize concession revenues from existing assets
The golf course, tennis facilities, beach club, and athletic club already generate concession revenue. A careful audit of those agreements — benchmarked against comparable facilities in similar communities — could identify whether PVE is leaving money on the table. Even modest renegotiations or updated fee structures could add a few hundred thousand dollars annually without building anything new.
3. Create a PVE Community Facilities District (Mello-Roos) for infrastructure
Rather than loading everything onto the parcel tax, a separate CFD dedicated to capital improvements (roads, sewers, storm drains) would create a transparent, ring-fenced funding stream for the deferred maintenance backlog. This separates the "keeping the lights on" conversation (parcel tax) from the "fixing what's broken" conversation, which may be easier for residents to support when they can see exactly where the money goes.
Moderate / Medium-Term Ideas
Ideas that require more coordination, community engagement, or structural change — but remain well within the realm of what other California cities are already doing.
4. Establish a formal PVE Endowment / Community Foundation
The PVE Foundation already exists, but it's relatively modest. A more ambitious version would actively solicit major gifts and bequests from residents. A dedicated endowment for open space maintenance and fire mitigation could eventually generate enough annual income to meaningfully offset those budget lines.
5. Voluntary fund for public safety operations
A voluntary fund for operational and maintenance costs of police, fire, and emergency services that residents could pay into quarterly. The fund would have full community oversight. No ballot measure would be needed. Residents opt in to cover the day-to-day public safety operations (salaries, equipment, response capacity), which frees up general-fund dollars the city is currently spending on those operations. The city could then redirect that freed-up revenue — plus whatever else it can marshal from its own assets — into an aggressive pension catch-up strategy.
6. "Friends of PVE Open Spaces" + carefully permitted open-space uses
Start a "Friends of PVE Open Spaces" fund with a monthly membership due that hosts events around the parklands and open spaces. In parallel, look into monetizing PVE's open spaces through carefully permitted uses. This is delicate given residents' attachment to green space, but there's a version that enhances rather than degrades it: permitted small-scale events (weddings, corporate retreats, nature photography workshops) in designated areas with strict limits on frequency, hours, and footprint; trail-use permits for organized groups; nature education programs with modest fees. Revenue per event is small, but it reframes open space as an asset that generates revenue rather than one that only consumes it.
7. "PVE Green Bond" for fire mitigation and infrastructure
Municipal bonds dedicated to wildfire prevention, defensible space creation, and critical infrastructure could spread costs over time while addressing urgent needs now. Given PVE's strong credit profile and the post-Palisades-fire urgency around wildfire preparedness in LA County, a green bond could attract favorable rates and broad resident support.
Bold / Out-of-the-Box Ideas
Higher-risk, higher-reward ideas that would require vision, political will, and careful community input. Listed to broaden the conversation, not because they are ready to go.
8. Peninsula-wide public safety consolidation study
The four PV Peninsula cities collectively operate or contract for overlapping services. A serious, independent study of whether a unified Peninsula police department or shared dispatch center could maintain service quality while reducing per-city costs would, at minimum, give PVE data to work with. The framing matters: not "losing our police department" but "what would it take to make Peninsula-wide public safety better at a lower per-resident cost?" Even if full consolidation is a bridge too far, partial integration (shared detective units, shared forensics, joint training facilities) could yield savings.
9. "PVE Residents' Investment Cooperative" for city revenue generation
The unconventional idea: PVE's residents are its greatest asset — wealthy, engaged, and deeply invested in the community. What if the city facilitated (not operated) a resident investment vehicle that funded revenue-generating improvements? Think: a premium co-working space in an underused city facility, or a high-end farm-to-table market on a small commercial parcel — with returns split between investors and the city's general fund. This turns residents from pure taxpayers into stakeholders with financial upside.
10. Negotiate a "conservation premium" with LA County or the state
PVE maintains 28% of its land as open space, providing ecological services (carbon sequestration, habitat, watershed protection, fire buffer) that benefit the entire region. There's a growing policy framework — at both state and federal levels — for compensating communities that preserve open space. PVE could position itself as a pilot for municipal conservation credits or seek formal recognition (and funding) through state programs. This is a long game, but the policy winds are blowing in this direction.
11. Develop a micro-tourism strategy that leverages PVE's brand without changing its character
PVE doesn't want hotels or tour buses, and it shouldn't. But there's an emerging model of ultra-low-impact, high-value tourism: guided nature walks, sunset photography experiences, tide pool ecology tours, exclusive access to the Palos Verdes coastline. Operated through a city-licensed concession with strict caps, this could generate meaningful revenue while actually reinforcing PVE's identity as a place of natural beauty. The Torrey Pines model in San Diego is instructive — preserved, celebrated, and modestly revenue-generating.
12. Lobby for property tax reallocation reform
This is the biggest structural issue underlying PVE's finances: the city only gets about 11.3 cents of every property-tax dollar. That's a legacy of Prop 13 and the post-1978 allocation formulas, and it punishes residential-only cities. PVE could join or lead a coalition of similarly situated cities pushing Sacramento for a more equitable allocation — or at minimum, for a mechanism that allows voter-approved local overrides. This is a decade-long fight, but it addresses the root cause rather than the symptoms.
Submit an Idea
If you have a revenue idea, cost-reduction strategy, or financial-structure proposal you think PVE should consider, we'd love to hear it. We'll review submissions for good-faith content, summarize them in plain English, and add the best to this page with attribution if you want credit.
How to submit
Email your idea to [your email here], or post it in [forum link / Nextdoor / etc]. Include:
- A one-sentence summary of the idea
- A paragraph explaining how it would work
- Any examples from other cities that have done something similar
- Whether you'd like your name attached or prefer to stay anonymous
References
Comparative financial data drawn from each city's most recent Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (FY 2025).
- City of Palos Verdes Estates. Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Fiscal Year 2024–2025. Palos Verdes Estates, CA, 2025. Population p. 11; General Fund balance p. 23; Net pension liability p. 26; Property taxes p. 27; Section 115 Trust discussion in MD&A. View Document.
- City of San Marino. Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2025. San Marino, CA, 2025. Population p. 9; Section 115 Trust (CERBT) discussion p. 11; Total revenues p. 26; Net pension liability p. 30.
- City of Manhattan Beach. Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Fiscal Year 2025. Manhattan Beach, CA, 2025. General Fund balance p. 14; Hotel (TOT) tax p. 15; Net pension liability after POBs p. 30; Property taxes p. 31; Pension Obligation Bonds outstanding p. 40; Population 34,051 per Demographic and Economic Statistics (statistical section).
- City of Rolling Hills Estates. Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, Year Ended June 30, 2025. Rolling Hills Estates, CA, 2025. Population p. 9; Property taxes & sales taxes p. 31; Net pension liability p. 37.
- City of Palos Verdes Estates. FY 2025–2026 Adopted Budget. Palos Verdes Estates, CA, 2025. Measure E parcel tax revenue figure. View Document.