Deep pockets in Los Altos in need of emptying.

One has to wonder about LASD accounting - sorry Señor Kenyon but something isn't adding up here.

The last I heard the District placed a 3% teacher raise on the shelf (it's still being negotiated I believe) and the property tax income from all the sales and housing upgrades in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills has to be substantial.

And what about the $150 million bond measure that squeaked through over a year ago?

California school districts are having to up their contribution to the teacher retirement fund but, nonetheless, I have a sneaking suspicion that Los Altos voters are beginning to tire of repetitive requests for more money - from LASD, or anyone else. Push this too hard and I predict you will NOT get the parcel tax you claim to desperately need.

I'm truly amazed that the voters of Los Altos would approve a $597 parcel tax. Just shows you who owns property there. MV would have a tough time passing even the $197 parcel tax.

MVLA had not try to pull this tax theft upon MV residents!

This can hardly be considered a tax theft if > 3/4 of the LASD Board votes to put it on the ballot and > 2/3 of the LASD voters in the November General Election choose to tax themselves. In the political theory of democracies the corollary to "No taxation without representation" is?

Steven Nelson is not a member of the Los Altos School District Board

Remember - this was a temporary parcel tax that wasn't going to be renewed. Well, as expected, this additional $2.5 million a year has just been rolled into the run rate.
Income is way up due to the extraordinary increase in property values, but still that's not enough. It never is!!

I plan on voting No. They do a terrible job with the funds that we have given them. As far as I can tell they spend it on retirees and lawyers. Parents have to pay for everything either straight out of our pockets or through the PTA and LAEF. So tired of shelling out, yet it is never enough. They can't even figure out how to spend the bond. Hint -- it shouldn't be on real estate, for heavens sake use what we already have.

And just a recommendation, we don't need another LASD school. The schools are fine the way they are. We need to get Bullis off of the Egan and Blach campuses. Put them at Covington, move the six graders to the junior highs and be done with it.

It gets worse! That shortfall that justified the "temporary" bump of the $193 parcel tax was caused by the state borrowing money out of school funds. LASD has received a payback just recently of $2.4 Million of that borrowed money. And in this year's budget request, Governor Brown proposes increasing the payback next year. LASD would collect another $3 Million payback from the state next year if this is accepted.

Bottom line is that the state overall is ramping up school funding and there just isn't the need for so much parcel tax any longer.