CA: The school funding maze - 55% Approval Threshold For Parcel Taxes Would Be A Huge Help

Mercury News ^ | 6/8/03 | Mercury News

[NormsRevenge]

A QUARTER-century ago, Proposition 13 and a court decision to equalize funding among school districts transferred power to the state and eroded local control over school taxes.

Since then, legislators have turned education financing into a monument to the Winchester Mystery House. It's illogical and byzantine, with tiny pots of money in a thousand nooks and crannies. At least the Mystery House's foundation is stable. Education is built on the loose foundation of a cyclical economy.

[NormsRevenge]

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[NormsRevenge]

Also from the Murky Noise today

What schools really need
IT'S REASONABLE TO ASK BUSINESSES TO PAY A LITTLE MORE FOR WHAT THEY SAY THEY WANT: EDUCATED WORKERS
Mercury News Editorial

PUBLIC schools need a transfusion of money.

With not enough coming from the state, many are turning to the Band-Aid of local taxes.

Parcel taxes can provide temporary, usually small-scale, relief. But as commonly passed here, they assess everyone the same: rich and poor, homeowners and businesses. They ignore economic ability to pay; a mini-mart pays as much as a Home Depot. That raises questions about equity and differs from the value-based assessment for property taxes.

As a local task force seeks to raise teacher salaries and considers a countywide parcel tax, it should challenge conventional thinking and fashion a more equitable tax. State law permits parcel taxes to be fairer.

This is a challenging issue for businesses and apartment complex owners, who feel little pain from parcel-based taxes: a 50,000-square-foot office complex pays the same $96 as a 1,500-square-foot home. And there's no question that many factors add up to make it expensive to do business in Silicon Valley and California, in general.

But it's reasonable to ask businesses to pay for what they say is their top priority: a more well educated workforce. Last month, Kim Polese, chairman of the software firm Marimba, said at a Mercury News round table that Valley leaders ``need to do even more to encourage our government to invest in education (and) fix our public education system.''

Well, local authorities would love to invest; but they need the resources, and businesses and apartment complex owners have an opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way.

This community can't sit around waiting for the state to come up with a long-term solution. Short-term fixes are up to local districts -- as well as to businesses, parents and others in the community.

At least two California school districts have devised a tiered parcel tax that recognizes differing abilities to pay.

Kentfield in Marin County assesses residences at a flat rate but businesses based on square footage. Piedmont in Alameda County sets up categories, so owners of mansions or apartments pay more than owners of cottages. A parcel under 5,000 square feet pays the lowest tax; a commercial parcel greater than 10,000 square feet pays the highest.

This system has several advantages. It replaces a regressive tax with a modestly progressive one. With 10 tiers, it sets a cap -- something standard property taxes lack.

Taxes based on parcel size are attractive to districts in part because they can raise more money than flat taxes. Last week, the Mountain View-Whisman School District sought a tax of 5 cents per developed square foot. Faced with strong opposition from San Jose-based business groups and the Republican Party, the tax failed, even though it garnered 63.1 percent of the vote.

Business, which was not fully consulted in placing this measure on the ballot, had legitimate beefs. Had it passed, Measure E would have imposed 40 percent of its burden on commercial and industrial owners. There was no cap, and language was imprecise about what types of property would be taxed. (That enabled opponents to raise a red herring about driveways being counted in square footage.)

If parcel taxes are to be devised more fairly, it will take some movement on both sides. Districts can't expect to impose a heavy obligation on businesses and still win their support, although that may work in some communities. Berkeley imposes a per-square-foot tax for schools, and assesses businesses at nearly three times the rate proposed in Mountain View.

And businesses and apartment owners, for their part, should abandon their flat-tax-or-nothing stance.

It's in everyone's interest not to allow schools to sink back to the bottom of the heap -- which is likely to happen if programs disappear, teachers are laid off and class sizes grow.

[Lancey Howard]

These disgusting animals in the press and in government will do ANYTHING to confiscate more money from people so that they can keep their parasite constituencies, including the teachers union, rolling in dough. Wouldn't want these scumbags to miss a boat payment now, would we?

[Hildy]

I am so tired of the diseased school system begging for money. I attended a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in my city several months ago. At the the end of the breakfast, the school District did a Powerpoint Presentation showing how the schools were falling apart. The ceilings were leaking, the paint was falling off the walls, etc. Their plea was for businesses to support yet ANOTHER bond initiative to fix the schools up. I was completely shocked at this. I commented to the business owner sitting next to me that this was what was wrong with the system. Could he ever imagine getting up in front of his Chamber of Commerce and SHOW them, in pictures, what a lousy job he's doing...and then ask them to help him raise money to continue doing a lousy job?

[Uncle Hal]

The liberals always blame Prop. 13 for the school's problems. The 1000 pound elephant sitting in the room that they never mention is illegal immigration and the problems it has caused in eduation to say nothing of law enfrocement and health problems. Now evidently illegals are going to get to legally drive. They just do not get it.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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[mvpel]

Illegals or no, they still pay $7,300 per student to educate them, about 39th out of the states, and still come in dead last in student performance.

Their per-pupil operating costs in constant dollars has been increasing steadily since 1970, and yet their performance has been steadily falling. More money is not what they need.

[goldstategop]

My thinking exactly. When we put the question to the voters, have you gotten value for the money you've handed over to the government? I think we all know the answer. Instead of making it easier to raise taxes we need to restore the two-thirds vote protection for school bonds by getting Proposition 39 repealed. It was a tax increase measure that passed basically because of the deep pockets of a few liberal Silicon Valley billionaires who marketed it as helping the "chirrun." The public was suckered into letting down its guard. I don't think it will care to repeat the experience again.

[The Westerner]

Excellent point. It's easy to blame peeling paint, but there are third world countries educating students better than America's. Why? Because they stick to the basics. Notice here, the story mentions Irvine's assessment tax for maintainance of "recreational facilities." Huh?

[goldstategop]

"Recreational facilities" have to do what with the fundamental 3 R's exactly?

[mvpel]

That must be what the SJ Mercury News was calling "demonstrable need" in their expressions of puzzlement that people shot these bond measures down.