The Los Altos School District is asking voters to approve the renewal and increase of a parcel tax in a special election this month.
Measure A, on a Nov. 7 special election ballot, would enact a $295 annual tax on each parcel of land within the district. It requires two-thirds approval to pass and would replace a $223 parcel tax that voters approved in 2016.
Measure A would take effect on July 1, 2024 and sunset in eight years, raising roughly $3.7 million annually. After the first year, the $295 tax would increase by 4% each year, to "account for increases in the cost of living," according to the text of the ballot measure.
The $295 figure was selected by calculating a roughly 4% annual increase on the $223 tax passed in 2016, school board President Jessica Speiser told the Voice.
The school district has a separate $597 permanent parcel tax, which would not be affected by Measure A, Speiser said. In total, the school district's parcel taxes currently account for roughly 13% of its budget, according to the district's website.
The Los Altos School District operates seven elementary schools and two junior high schools, which served roughly 3,350 students last school year. While most students live in Los Altos, parts of Mountain View are also included within the district's attendance boundaries.
Parcel tax supporters argue that Measure A is needed to avoid budget cuts that would result from the 2016 parcel tax expiring and that the funding is crucial to avoiding layoffs and retaining teachers.
"We are losing teachers to higher paying districts, so we needed to make sure that we got this parcel tax in order to be able to pay them a living wage and keep them," Speiser said.
The district points to other neighboring K-8 districts that are able to pay their teachers more, including Mountain View Whisman, Cupertino and Sunnyvale.
Speiser also noted that the school district has recently faced state requirements to expand transitional kindergarten and offer free universal meals to students, costs that the district has largely borne itself. The district receives reimbursement for the food it serves, but got little money to expand its facilities and staffing, Speiser said.
Los Altos, like some of its neighboring districts in Silicon Valley, is overwhelmingly funded by property tax revenue, rather than on a per-pupil basis from the state.
No official opposition to the parcel tax was submitted for inclusion in the county voter guide, but there has been some controversy within the community about how the parcel tax proceeds would be shared with Bullis Charter School.
The school district and charter school have long had a contentious relationship.
Bullis would receive a share of Measure A's proceeds in proportion to the number of students it has who live within the Los Altos School District's boundaries. However, that funding would be capped at $625,000 annually, unless the district and charter school agree to a higher amount.
According to Speiser, $625,000 is the amount that the charter school is currently receiving from the 2016 parcel tax, which did not include a cap. Measure A would raise more money than the 2016 tax – $3.7 million annually compared to $2.8 million.
Bullis Charter School board President Sanjeev Dutta told the Los Altos Town Crier that the charter school is neither endorsing nor opposing the parcel tax measure.
“We do not want to hinder the LASD board’s efforts to address fiscal circumstances with a parcel tax," Dutta told the Town Crier. "On the other hand, the parcel tax measure places a funding cap only on Los Altos children that attend BCS. It is difficult for us to explain to the community why nearly a quarter of Los Altos schoolchildren could receive less funding from a parcel tax to support their education compared to their friends.”
Speiser said that the district chose to include the cap in the parcel tax because the charter school grew its enrollment from roughly 900 to 1,100 students in 2019, which Speiser described as being unfair to the school district and done without community approval.
The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters has sent registered voters vote-by-mail ballots for the election. Those ballots can be mailed back or returned to an official ballot drop box or vote center. Residents can also vote in person at any vote center location.
For more information on the election and vote center locations and hours, visit the Registrar of Voters' website at sccvote.sccgov.org.
Comments
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Nov 2, 2023 at 2:46 pm
Registered user
on Nov 2, 2023 at 2:46 pm
How can Los Altos district / with includes about ?1/5? of the City of Mountain View - run such a big Total parcel tax? This tax would be almost $900 per parcel (Flat Tax) for the Total per parcel.
Economics research has show (though it is a very small research field!) that wealthy homogeneous-parcel districts can pass the taxes because the residential properties are very similar, and so the Fairness of the tax seems not unreasonable. In heterogeneous-parcel districts (like very mixed residential, and large Commercial Businesses) there is a better chance to pass a Per Square Foot tax, it seems 'fairer' to the more numerous small-property owners/voters).
Los Altos SD has much less commercial Assessed Valuation (per pupil) than MVWSD does. It makes it up - with these relatively large Parcel Taxes. MVWSD also has a very aggressive surplus property Lease (at Market) program, which also helps it's General Fund revenue.
Registered user
another community
on Nov 2, 2023 at 3:58 pm
Registered user
on Nov 2, 2023 at 3:58 pm
LASD has grown its reserves by $12 Million dollars during the time that this 2nd property tax has been in effect. It has collected about $14 M from the tax not counting the sharing with the charter school.
The charter school is what equalizes funding in LASD compared to MVWSD. The charter school is educating 1000 of the students from LASD but not costing LASD anywhere near the same amount. LASD is collecting about the same per student enrolled from property taxes as does MVWSD. The parcel taxes are huge and the 2nd one is no longer justifiable. The $7.5 Million from the original parcel tax collected each year equalizes with all the extra revenue sources available to MVWSD so both districts get about the same total revenue per student. The 2nd parcel tax would make LASD have more per student than does MVWSD.