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.