On Thursday, opponents of Measure L had a piece that the Vanguard published. Their argument is that West Davis Active Adult Community (WDAAC) does not meet real housing needs for Davis. It is an argument we are somewhat sympathetic to, overall. The real question is whether Measure L can actually provide housing for existing senior residents who would downsize into smaller homes, freeing up existing housing for younger families.
However, the argument goes somewhat awry, talking about school funding.
Here is the key paragraph: “Clearly, because of the age-restrictions imposed on buyers, this project will do little to directly increase the housing stock for young families. And because of this dearth of kids in town, our schools are so starved for young students that we need to import over 650 students per day just to keep school doors from shuttering and moth-balling our existing neighborhood schools. And we pay dearly for schooling those imported students with the highest school-related parcel taxes in the region. We clearly need more young families with children in town to fill our schools and maintain our vibrancy in Davis yet few families can afford to come to Davis because of sky-rocketing home purchase and rental prices.”
We agree that the age-restrictions mean that the “project will do little to directly increase the housing stock for young families.” An open question, of course, is whether the theory that underlies the project will work in practice and it can indirectly free up housing for young families.
Next they note that the lack of housing for families means that the district imports a sizable student population which helps offset the overall slow decline in local student enrollment.
That’s a more complicated picture than just an ADA (average daily attendance) prop, of course. A number of people who work at UC Davis take their kids with them and attend the quality DJUSD schools. For the most part, that is a win-win. The district gets ADA money for those students while the students get a DJUSD education.
Where we have the most problem is this line: “And we pay dearly for schooling those imported students with the highest school-related parcel taxes in the region.”
Whether you believe importing students from outside of the district is a good practice or a bad practice, it is not the cause of the parcel tax.
To understand that, we need to understand that the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) funding, along with state and federal revenue, accounts for a total of 87 cents on the dollar. That means that, as the average school district gets a dollar from the state and federal government to fund their programs, mainly through LCFF, the district gets considerably less.
The district then makes up that shortfall largely through the parcel tax. The parcel tax currently closes the funding gap from 87 percent up to 98 percent. It accounts for 11 cents on the dollar.
Why does the district get so much less than other districts? Its own affluence means that it receives a good deal less money from the state. This has nothing to do with interdistrict transfers.
In addition, the district has prioritized high quality programs, which require additional money to implement. So, while the average district uses the additional LCFF money to support disadvantaged kids, DJUSD uses its parcel tax to fund programs it otherwise would not – programs like the seven period day, foreign languages, music and art, among others.
So why do we have a high parcel tax? First, the overall cutback in educational money to the district from the state has been augmented by local revenue. Second, the district has chosen to maintain its high quality of programs. And third, it is disadvantaged by the LCFF.
They close the paragraph: “We clearly need more young families with children in town to fill our schools and maintain our vibrancy in Davis yet few families can afford to come to Davis because of sky-rocketing home purchase and rental prices.”
We agree, but this is also a tricky endeavor. The first irony is that one reason why property values are so high is that Davis is in high demand and part of that is due to the quality of the schools. The other factor here, some will argue, is that growth control policies have made new single families homes more scarce and have helped to maintain the high costs.
In our view, one remedy for that situation is to provide affordable housing for 80 to 120 percent of median income families. But, of course, in order to do that, it would require market rate housing developed on the periphery, most likely, in order to finance that type of housing. That is the kind of housing many have opposed in recent years, and the voters have voted down previously.
Bottom line, interdistrict transfers are not the reason our parcel tax is so high, and, while the dearth of kids in town is a real concern, coming up with solutions to that dearth will result in some tradeoffs for this community.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
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Good morning and what a lovely morning it is. I’m feeling so good and I can’t justice(fy) why.
Why doesn’t Davis downsize its school system to just take care of our own children? Why does it have to overtax homeowners and import children in order to maintain a system that’s too large for its school aged children? If government money actually covered the cost per student we wouldn’t need parcel taxes and saying that adding extra students doesn’t create more costs I feel is misguided. Yes, importing students does create more costs and higher parcel taxes otherwise Davis could downsize its school system and just educate the kids that actually live in Davis.
That’s just it – government money doesn’t cover the cost per student – the chief problem is that Davis is getting 87 cents on the dollar from LCFF and makes up the rest with parcel taxes.
So adding more students whose costs aren’t fully covered that don’t live in Davis only exacerbates the problem, which was my point.
That’s where it gets trickier. When you add a student, you generally are not increasing your costs most of which are fixed or at least scalable. So you in effect add their ADA money without gaining cost. When you subtract a student, you lose that ADA money without a cost savings.
The math comes out like this – when the transfer student number was 700 last year – it looks like about 650 this year…
Cost: 700 * 8000 = 5.6 million
Savings: 25 sections 1.6 million
And that doeesn’t factor into the equation that you would have to do a massive boundary shift to realize the saving of the teachers. And because the transfers are not only scattered across the district at the sites, but across grade levels, you can’t close a school which the district estimates would save about $500,000 (much less than the gap).
Even if you could do all of this, you’re only talking about district students being 7.6% of the total district enrollment, so at best you might be able to reduce the parcel tax by $50 – but the district isn’t going to reduce the parcel tax because they are needing to increase that number anyway. So maybe instead of going to $960 they would ask for $900 to keep it nice and round. That’s in a perfect world where costs are scalable.
No, no, no, no, no. The more students Davis has the more teachers that are needed, the more schools that need to remain open, the more costs for counselors, etc…..
Also, Davis homeowners resent having to pay parcel taxes when out of towners get the benefit of using Davis schools without the extra tax burden.
Bear in mind as well – the parcel tax only funds certain things. It is not technically general fund money. So even if you lost students, it would not be able to be redistributed.
You are correct – the more students, the more teachers. But probably not more of other things. The problem is scalability. At 700 transfer students you were looking at an average of 2 students per classroom. Based on that how would you reduce the number of teachers? I showed you how the math works.
“At 700 transfer students you were looking at an average of 2 students per classroom. Based on that how would you reduce the number of teachers?”
Is this a joke?
Exactly Jim, it’s amazing how David sometimes tries to twist the numbers to fit his arguments. 700 less students should translate into big savings in teachers, administrators, support staff and closing down at least one school.
I’ll walk you through the math when I’m done getting my grandmother a battery
If you shut down just one elementary school, right off the top you are saving the cost of these employees:
Library Tech
Library
Admin Sec
Office
Attendance Sec
Office
Bridge
Office
Principal
Office
School Counselor
Office
Note this does not include janitorial and lunchroom staff. It also does not include the costs of maintaining the facility itself, grounds keeping, HVAC, crossing guards, parking lot maintenance, etc.
$500,000 is what they save by closing a school
“I’ll walk you through the math” I can’t wait. After your last math lesson on how adding three million people to the state does not increase housing prices I’m sure I have much to learn.
The problem, David, is you took your ‘math lesson’ from a school administrator who was looking to justify keeping his overlarge system intact. Close a school, sell off the property for redevelopment and use the funds to upgrade the remaining campuses without the added need for a new school bond measure. Operating costs are lowered overall, and the percentage of kids from outside the district is reduced. I’m not arguing this is the best approach, just pointing out that the District’s estimate for cost savings is incomplete, and consequently bogus.
Don’t forget that if the school district were to close a school like MME and allow an apartment developer to build on the site with a 49 year ground lease they could get MILLIONS of dollars in ground lease income…
While the kids that actually live in Davis are not perfect reports from my spies inside the DJUSD classrooms (my kids) are that the kids that live in Davis are overall better students and have less discipline problems than the kids that drive in every day from West Sac with their single moms that work at UCD…
From Ed Code:
Ken, the rumor is that parents of kids with IEPs prefer Davis and districts where these kids reside facilitate their transfer to DJU.
I have no evidence that it is true but given the number of kids with IEPs in DJU I find it highly likely.
Jim, I have heard the same thing about surrounding districts dumping high cost IEP kids on Davis (I have one kid with an IEP)…
Just dumping the salaries of the jobs that Jim listed above saves over $500,000/year and that doesn’t include teachers, janitors, gardeners, maintenance staff and building upkeep.
About $500,000 is what you save by closing the school. And there isn’t enough enrollees to close a full school. But that’s more than offset by the loss in ADA money. Remember parcel tax money is going to specific things.
So David, has every district in CA with 7,800 students had to declare bankruptcy? According to you there is no way to have a district with that number of students.
It would be interesting to look at how many are getting LCFF at .87 cents on the dollar and see how they would be making up the difference. Also wonder if most of them are basic aid districts.
As long as the people in Davis keep voting yes on the school parcel taxes no one in the school district is ever going to even mention closing a school (and demoting a principal to a vice principal and giving pink slips to the nice hard working young teachers that they are friends with)…
Here’s one “solution” that will definitely be counterproductive: Approve a large development that is explicitly intended to discriminate against families with children. And please understand, the exemption in state and federal fair housing laws permitting senior housing was specifically intended to permit continued discrimination against families with children. This solution makes no more than it would to address the City’s lack of racial diversity by approving a whites-only housing development on the theory that it will free up other housing for non-white buyers.
Earlier this weekend I had the opportunity to speak to one of the developers. I asked what criteria precisely they had used to determine the community “need” for this type of program. His response was anecdotal evidence from self selected attendees at forums they had hosted. I do not think he appreciated my anecdotal evidence that from my neighborhood in North Star, I am the only person that has downsized allowing my home to be purchased by a family with children. Of ten other families that raised their children in the neighborhood at the same time, one couple sold their home to an even older childless couple and the eight others are still aging in place deliberately. Until, I see real objective need addressed, I cannot in good conscience favor this project. I have been on the fence until now, but after this conversation am heading rapidly towards a “No vote”.
My two best friends Dad’s were MDs and they were both older than my Dad who was not a college grad and married in his 20’s (both MD Dads died in their early 80’s and one Mom moved to a nearby senior apartment and another is in the old home living with a divorced sister and her kids).
I’m wondering if Tia is older than the other eight couples that “raised their children in the neighborhood”? and if she thinks that the other eight couples plan to stay in big 4 bedroom suburban homes when they are in their 80’s.
P.S. Since most Northstar Homes are not even 30 years old many kids that came home from the hospital to Northstar homes their parents bought new have not even graduated from college yet…
Although I did wait to have my children later than the average for our society, I am within ten years of all of the couples I referenced with one of them being older than I. My partner is 69, I am 66. With the trend in our society having children later, I do not see this as a persuasive argument especially since one of my sample sold to a still older couple ( late 70’s).
Also of note, I chose to sell my home to a local family rather than accepting a higher offer in cash from out of towners who were an older couple who I suspected were buying for investment, certainly not to raise their family. I doubt this is a common choice although I have no proof.
“In our view, one remedy for that situation is to provide affordable housing for 80 to 120 percent of median income families.”
As an opponent on Measure L/WDAAC, that is my view too! And this moderate income workforce housing is coincidentally enough , the primary “internal housing need” that Measure R addresses, as I detail in this article: https://davisvanguard.org/2018/09/guest-commentary-internal-housing-needs-davis/
WDAAC does nothing to address this: it is primarily a high-end exclusive senior housing enclave.
“But, of course, in order to do that, it would require market rate housing developed on the periphery, most likely, in order to finance that type of housing. That is the kind of housing many have opposed in recent years, and the voters have voted down previously.”
Now this veers into bad analysis. You are acting like the proposed developments had significant provisions for moderate income housing when they did not. Maybe people are rejecting more of the same high-end housing proposals that don’t address our real needs. In the case of WDAAC: again, it does not address this housing need at all. Nor have other proposed developments. One real culprit: the Davis Chsmber of Commerce backed by a coalition of developers who killed the City of Davis Middle Income Ordinance in 2009 that had requirements for the provision of this tier of housing.
Let’s do a quick example of the problem – 1st grade
There are 8 elementary schools
Let’s say it comes to 2 per class and each campus has three classes
North Davis – 6 students
Patwin – 6 students
Birch Lane – 6 students
Chavez – 6 students
Willet – 6 student
Pioneer – 6 students
Montgomery – 6 students
Korematsu – 6 students
So you say, there are 48 less students, you can reduce by about 1.5 teacher. But how do you do that? In the real world, those are families that would have to move their kids to other schools and it’s a massive amount of re-shuffling and there are other factors like families with more than one kid in school, magnet programs at some schools – so what sounds simple to you is a logistical nightmare and all to save one teacher at one grade level. Or maybe two teachers at one grade level if we’re really talking about 650 students.
BTW, keep in mind, it’s not a true 650 that they can cut. For instance, according to district data about 150 or so of the transfers are students who were enrolled in school previously in the district and are entitled to stay. So you can’t even cut the full 650.
Closing a school saves about $500,000 according to the district, but you’re only looking at 200 to 350 elementary students – so it’s not clear how you achieve a closure.
With all of that the district estimates they can close about 25 section (Savings: 25 sections $1.6 million) but they would lose about $5.6 million in ADA money. Might save another half million if you close a school, but again, that still ends up on the losing end for the district.
I’m mindful of Mark’s comment that there are probably some additional ways to save – I don’t disagree. I’m simply pointing out it’s not as simple as it seems on paper.
David:
Here is a piece of reality for you. Almost every elementary school is “overflowing” students from some grade now and the more desirable schools (NDE/Willet/Fairview) are “overflowing” from most grades. Kids having to go where there is space is already current practice and has not been a “logistical nightmare”. This is facilitated by the fact that Davis is small and the next elementary school is not so far away. From Patwin to Willet to Caeser Chavez to NDE is about two miles.
Regarding transfers:
If you stop accepting new transfers the number will rapidly drop. I would suggest 20% per year would be a reasonable estimate. There was also a recent court case where someone from Woodland sued DJU. The net was that DJU was not obligated to continue a transfer student if there was no space available.
I believe there is a path to taking transfers from UCD staff with UCD making us whole on the parcel tax. I believe it’s about $1300 per student. In addition UCD would provide very desirable students from an educational and diversity point of view.
Overflowing means that you wouldn’t gain as much cost savings if you cut students. Cutting back on 20% per year is cutting about $1 million per year from the budget.
“Closing a school saves about $500,000 according to the district” This figure is too ridiculous to even respond to. it’s right up there with “3M extra people do not raise housing prices”.
They closed a school not that long ago.
If you’re going to be serious about proposing cost savings, you need to have people walk you through how the numbers are derived and go from there. Talk to HJackson or someone like that who doesn’t work for the district, but knows the budget.
No, they didn’t. They closed an elementary school and then opened a charter high school on the site. They also opened two new elementary schools at the same time. The net impact was two new schools in town when the demographic changes indicated that at least one and probably both were not needed.
Mark – that’s not quite true. They opened new elementary schools at Montgomery and Korematsu prior to closing Valley Oak. They moved the charter school that had been housed elsewhere as well as a preschool at the existing site. I won’t disagree that they overextended in opening the new school at Korematsu failing to anticipate Measure R. But none of that has much to do with my point which is that the savings from closing a school is a known cost that can be predicated and it is not sufficient to make up for the much larger impact of losing the ada for 650 transfer students.
“the savings from closing a school is a known cost that can be predicated and it is not sufficient to make up for the much larger impact of losing the ada for 650 transfer students.”
Since you do not know how much can be saved from closing a site it seems that the correct answer would be “I have no idea”.
That’s a lot of upheaval for something you just admitted you don’t know how much benefit will be.
I think I have been consistent in favoring monetizing transfers rather than eliminating them. However if we are going to have a discussion of transfers it is better to have actual facts rather than obviously incorrect information.
Without understanding how transfers compare to local students in cost metrics we do not know what the spend is.
Without knowing what would be saved by ending the transfer program how can we intelligently discuss?
Jim Hoch: “I think I have been consistent in favoring monetizing transfers rather than eliminating them.”
I don’t know of a legal way to monetize (charge families in some way) transfers. Do you?
“I don’t know of a legal way to monetize (charge families in some way) transfers. Do you?”
You cannot charge families, you can charge other districts. I moved here from a district that had a high school and took students from the adjoining district that was only K-8.
They paid for both facilities and operations as a shared service, not just a transfer of ADA.
If we change the transfer policy UCD will be highly concerned as they use the lure of DJU in recruiting faculty. The path forward would be to take UCD staff children under contract with UCD and no longer accept transfers outside of this arrangement. Perhaps we could start with UCD kicking in the parcel tax (~$1300) per kid + a kicker for IEPs or other special needs. We could end up with another $900K-$1M with no additional cost to the district.
It may even be possible to offer bus service from Campus to one or more schools for parental convenience.
I’m curious how you arrive at $1300 per kid from UC Davis? I think HJackson raises another point which is why would UCD pay that, but start at the $1300.
I know that for purposes of school attendance, if one works inside the attendance boundaries of DJUSD while living elsewhere, then a parent is eligible to enroll their kids in the district as if they lived in the district, provided there is space. That is how most out of district transfers occur in DJUSD. I don’t think UCD would be inclined to pay out any money when they don’t have to.
There is no publicly available data on parent employment for those students, but I infer that most of those families are employed by UCD and then probably DJUSD. For DJUSD staff who live outside the district, it is probably an incentive to work in the district, to be able to enroll one’s kids. Otherwise I don’t think many such employees would see it as worthwhile.
$1300 is my guess at parcel tax raised divided by the number of local kids. How much money are the DJU taxpayers providing for each enrolled child from the DJU boundaries.
You likely have access to better figures. What do you estimate it as?
UCD is growing and would have an interest in offering guaranteed placement to DJU schools when making an employment offer. They would determine whether non-academic staff or non-resident students would also be able to apply depending on availability.
“then a parent is eligible to enroll their kids in the district as if they lived in the district, provided there is space”
That is current DJU policy and is subject to change. There is no obligation to accept students on an employment basis. If they believed DJU was no longer going a accept new transfers from UCD parents they likely would be interested in a discussion. If we closed a school, or announced plans to do so, they would need to make other arrangements as we would no longer have room.
Appreciate the explanation.
So here’s another way of looking at things… Is the district disadvantaged at all by accepting interdistrict transfer students…
Observe:
Student 1: family moves to Davis. Adds a student. The district gets the ADA money. The parcel tax is paid regardless of whether a home in Davis has a student or not.
Student 2: family moves out of Davis, but keeps their kid in DJUSD. The district gets the ADA money. The home that the family lived in, is bought by someone else, who pays the parcel tax.
The district therefore gets the same money for the student whether they live in Davis or transfer to Davis.
So why would the district get money from the university?
Jim Hoch: “That is current DJU policy and is subject to change. There is no obligation to accept students on an employment basis.”
That is also the basis under which DJUSD teachers can enroll their kids if they live out of district. If you potentially change it, then I think you face lower overall incentives to attract teachers.
Student 1: family moves to Davis. Adds a student. The district gets the ADA money. The parcel tax is paid regardless of whether a home in Davis has a student or not. I do not understand this this scenario. What are you getting at.
Student 2: family moves out of Davis, but keeps their kid in DJUSD. The district gets the ADA money. The home that the family lived in, is bought by someone else, who pays the parcel tax.
Under this scenario we are getting the same amount of parcel tax but getting twice as many students so the money only goes half as far assuming the new person also has a kid.
There is no free lunch?
BTW what is your calculation for the average supplemental revenue per local student.
“If you potentially change it, then I think you face lower overall incentives to attract teachers.”
Some teachers regard this as a benefit. If we can get UCD to kick in then all teachers would benefit.
H Jackson: “If you potentially change it, then I think you face lower overall incentives to attract teachers.”
Jim Hoch: “Some teachers regard this as a benefit.”
This is probably an “agree to disagree” moment, but I think the more teachers who enroll their kids in the same district where they teach, the more committed the teacher is to the district.
Jim Hoch: “If we can get UCD to kick in then all teachers would benefit.”
Too big an if, IMO. I don’t think they would.
“Under this scenario we are getting the same amount of parcel tax but getting twice as many students so the money only goes half as far assuming the new person also has a kid.”
No. The point is that for each student added, we get more money in ADA. Parcel tax is constant regardless of student population. And there is no difference between adding a student within the boundaries or outside of the boundaries. Parcel tax also doesn’t go to pay general operations.
“each student added, we get more money in ADA.”
If you feel the ADA is sufficient then let’s get rid of the parcel tax.
If you feel the parcel tax is necessary then the less transfers the better.
“Davis homeowners resent having to pay parcel taxes when out of towners get the benefit of using Davis schools without the extra tax burden.”
Reinterpretation: Some homeowners resent having to pay parcel taxes. Some are enthusiastic about using parcel taxes to support our schools. I fall into that camp.I don’t mind helping to educate the children of others who just happen to live outside district lines. I suspect from parcel taxes gone by that the majority do not love paying any kind of tax, but are willing to fund our local schools through parcel taxes.
Maybe we could set up some program in town where people (like Tia) that are “enthusiastic” about paying school parcel taxes can pay the parcel taxes for people (like Keith) who are “not real happy” about paying them…
It would be a win win where some people get to feel twice as good for paying twice as much in parcel taxes and people that “resent” paying them can save their parcel tax money to pay for all the other tax increases we know are coming…
From article:
“Honest” question – is the statement above accurate? “Affluence” determines the amount of money received from the state?
If so, then I can see where truly affluent communities (not Davis, but “actual/real” affluent communities) would simply allow their public schools to go to hell (essentially totally abandoning them), and just send their kids to private school.
“The LCFF creates funding targets based on student characteristics and provides greater flexibility to use these funds to improve student outcomes. For school districts and charter schools, the LCFF funding targets consist of grade span-specific base grants plus supplemental and concentration grants that are calculated based on student demographic factors.”
“Student demographic factors”. Such as wealth of parents (who aren’t students)?
What other “student demographic factors”?
Do we actually know how this is determined?
And in fact have resulted in raises to union members and consultants
http://laschoolreport.com/lausd-loses-appeal-over-how-it-spent-450-million-of-lcff-funds-intended-for-needy-students/
“Do we actually know how this is determined?”
You can google LCFF and there is an explanation of how the system works.
Ron – “Truly affluent” communities can ask to be a basic aid district. If a district can meet the state minimum level of funding through property taxes, they can become a basic aid district and forego state funds and also keep any excess property taxes. About 80 school districts out of 1000 in CA are basic aid districts. Almost half of the basic aid districts are in the Bay Area.
Thanks, Cindy.
Has anyone examined whether or not that makes sense in Davis?
Also, are the “demographic factors” of transfer students (who don’t live in Davis) considered when determining the amount of funding received? If so, how?
I haven’t seen much discussion on here, regarding exactly how funding from the state is determined for each district. Maybe others know more than I do about this. However, it seems to me that the first thing is to fully understand this process.
It seems that I had mistakenly assumed that funding was based upon average performance of students (with lower-performing districts receiving a greater share, in an effort to bring them up).
Ron: “Has anyone examined whether or not that makes sense in Davis?”
Last I heard, DJUSD receives about half of its money from local property taxes. Conditions in Davis are not likely to favor being Basic Aid any time in the near future.
Other Basic Aid districts can be found in the Sierras where there are lots of high value vacation homes, but not so many school children.
San Luis Obispo was a basic aid school district because of the nuclear power plant. That plant closes in less than 10 years and the district will have a $9 million shortfall. Have been told, Davis is not close to having the revenue to do it.
From a few years ago:
Public Policy Institute, 2013: Basic Aid School Districts
Regarding Measure L (WDAAC), it will be interesting to see how that (if its approved) interacts with Proposition 5 (which is expected to pass).
Here’s what’s expected to occur as a result of Proposition 5, as seniors gain the ability to transfer their Proposition 13-protected taxes anywhere in the state (a portion of which would apply WDAAC – even if its “Davis-connected” buyer’s program remains in place):
”
https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_5,_Property_Tax_Transfer_Initiative_(2018)#Overview
It won’t have any impact on local funding for schools. The only impact will be the parcels that get assessed the parcel tax (if they don’t opt out).