In a communication from former School Board Member and current president of the Yolo County Taxpayers Association, John Munn, he signaled that the taxpayers association may oppose the newly-proposed parcel tax.
“In October, the Yolo County Taxpayers Association advised the school board that it would not oppose a reasonable increase in the parcel tax to preserve core educational programs,” Mr. Munn writes, but explains that would be under under certain conditions.
According to Mr. Munn, the conditions include first, that the use of parcel tax funds must be clearly defined.
Second, new parcel tax revenue must be used to restore those services that were reduced or eliminated since the 2009-10 budget.
Third, all funds collected from the new parcel tax should be reduced by an amount equal to funds received from the state to cover the accumulated state revenue limit deficit factor.
And finally, the new parcel tax needs to expire after no more than four years, unless specifically and explicitly extended by the voters.
“Unfortunately, the school board’s framework ignores nearly all of the Taxpayer Association’s concerns,” Mr. Munn writes. “In particular, the draft framework lacks a mechanism for reducing the parcel tax in response to restoration of legally required state funds.”
“As a result, local funds intended to cover an emergency shortfall would be locked into the district’s ongoing budget. This would, in effect, create a windfall increase in the ongoing budget that would make dealing with future revenue fluctuations even more difficult,” John Munn continues.
He writes, “Such double-dipping into taxpayer pockets is not acceptable. Before asking for a tax increase during a struggling economy, the board needs to clearly describe what is at risk, identify what services and programs would be supported and provide mechanisms for accountability. Trustees also need to understand they are not alone in seeking additional revenue from taxpayers, who are likely to face proposals for higher state taxes and increased local utility rates as well.”
He concludes that while the needs of Davis schools are real, they must be addressed in a manner “that provides for clearly identified programs and services without saddling taxpayers with duplicate, ongoing costs.”
The Vanguard has a couple of concerns as well. First, according to our understanding, the district is not asking for nearly enough money in the next fiscal year to cover budget shortfalls. While the Vanguard understands the polling done by the district, it also believes that any efforts to raise taxes while continuing to lay off district personnel would be counterproductive to their long-term goals and foster mistrust from the public and anger from parents and teachers who will look at the tax increase and question the use of district resources.
Second, the Vanguard agrees with the taxpayer association and believes that previous efforts had included an automatic deflator, so that as state money is restored, the burden on the taxpayers is reduced.
The Davis community has strongly supported the schools in the past, and the polling indicates that they will continue to do so. However, there are some valid concerns by the Yolo County Taxpayers Association, as well as the Vanguard’s concern that we face the prospect of raising taxes and still laying off teachers.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Here’s the link to Mr. Munn’s original communication, an op-ed in last Tuesday’s Enterprise:
[url]http://search.davisenterprise.com/display.php?id=72534[/url]
A lot of this kind of discussion — that the district isn’t asking for enough, that the district may end up with a surplus of money from this parcel tax — is very speculative at this stage. The district only knows a certain level of initial deficit for next year, but that is before the Governor has released his preliminary January budget. That budget will set the tone for incoming Gov. Brown’s fiscal policy for the next four years. I suspect that this upcoming budget will be the bottoming out of the recession, as it affects state revenues and budgets. But it seems like projections are for a slow recovery.
I also suspect that whatever is requested in a parcel tax that might ultimately pass will never be enough to offset what is cut for the duration of that parcel tax. But the board discussions that take place after the new year will be far more important than what has occurred so far, because then they will have knowledge of the January preliminary budget.
What would be extraordinary would be if the taxpayers association supported a tax increase not that they are concerned about one.
Mr. Toad: What would be extraordinary would be if the taxpayers association supported a tax increase not that they are concerned about one.
To be fair, they did endorse Measure W in 2008.
Yolo County taxpayers:
The last state budget cut to public schools did not result in any losses of core classroom teachers despite all the disinformation by school districts to the contrary. Neither will the next round of anticipated budget cuts to public schools. This is because the legislature under ABX-4-2 deregulated the funding formula for public schools allowing local school districts to decide where they wanted state funds to be spent instead of the old practice of the state mandating that certain protected non-teaching jobs had to be funded (Indian Education Center workers, bus drivers, extra janitors, etc). The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) indicates there are more of such cuts that could be made without affecting core teaching. You can read about it here: http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/09/19/ending-earmarks-saved-ca-schools/
Nick, What you refer to is what DJUSD CBO Bruce Colby terms “categorical flexibility”. If you want to learn more about it, you should give him a call. I have found him to be open to the public on questions of school budget.
Those categorical restricted funds are one-time funds that the state required the districts to maintain. Those funds have been drawn down over three budget cycles. For DJUSD, there is really nothing left. A couple of years ago, this all showed up as about $10 million of reserve funds. DTA (teachers’ union) was arguing that the district should spend down this money before laying off teachers.
The authors of your piece may see it as “corruption tax”, and I don’t deny that abuses may have existed, but those funds were also one way to align budgeting with Ed-code. By building in certain restricted reserve funds, you can ensure that a school district isn’t using history books that stop at 1992, or that the newest school library books were added only in the last century. A “deferred maintenance fund” is meant to deal with things like the leaky roof at the DHS MPR.
Another tangible issue with Davis schools connected with the loss of those restricted funds is that public schools have an ed code mandate to supply school instruments to any family that requests it. If every kid in the Davis instrumental music program requested a school instrument, the district probably couldn’t even provide for a third of the students. As it is, the participation in the elementary music program has been growing during those years; by enrollment, it is bigger than it has ever been this year. The district maintained a state-mandated fund for the arts for such situations as this, but it has been harder to provide school instruments for low income families.
Some may also see hoarding of reserve funds (restricted or unrestricted) as some sort of fiscal corruption. But for some school districts that built sizable reserves, this was indeed their “rainy day fund”. They have indeed minimized layoffs and program cutbacks. Many school districts that had very little reserve funds are now faced with state takeover.
There are also restricted categories that are federally mandated.
[quote]Another tangible issue with Davis schools connected with the loss of those restricted funds is that public schools have an ed code mandate to supply school instruments to any family that requests it. [/quote]
So, we have to supply piano’s to anyone who wants one?