Due to the current market price of crude oil, Santa Barbara County has the capability and capacity to generate as much as $30 million per year in annual property taxes to Santa Barbara County, roughly 50 percent of which would go to our county's K-14 public schools, roughly 25 percent of which would go to our county's general fund, of which nearly 60 percent would fund our county's essential public safety programs and services including and especially our Sheriff's Office.
Today, Santa Barbara County isn't utilizing its full capacity of oil and gas production, particularly offshore, and this has resulted in a financial loss to our county of roughly $12 million in annual property taxes to various public agencies throughout the county.
In addition to the loss of property taxes, roughly $225 million in unrealized annual royalties to our federal government, and $28 million in annual royalties to our state government are also going unrealized.
This substantial amount of lost annual tax revenues represent a big-bang, positive economic impact that Santa Barbara County and the various jurisdictions therein are missing out on. These are revenues our county and its partner agencies are in great need of.
Moreover, this chronic financial crisis, which we have been experiencing for the past several years, is not due to some unpreventable natural disaster. Rather, it is due to what amounts to a preventable man-made disaster and unforced errors by those who currently govern Santa Barbara County.
This is not the time to point fingers or to place blame. However, it is long past time that we have a political paradigm shift in Santa Barbara County with respect to our attitude and approach to revenue generation, and about maximizing our comparable advantages, which must include rethinking our county government's land-use policies especially as it relates to resource development.
A political paradigm shift away from trapping oil and gas and other resource development opportunities in regulatory quicksand is absolutely vital and will benefit all of the residents of Santa Barbara County and North County families especially.
