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Starting this week, Mountain View Whisman School District residents will get to decide whether to continue boosting local public education funding through a parcel tax. Measure B, an annual $191-per-parcel tax, would safeguard against program cuts if funding from Sacramento is slashed, according to proponents of the measure.
Measure B, which is on the May 2 all-mail ballot being sent out this week, would impose a $191 tax on properties in the district for eight years, and would replace the district’s Measure C parcel tax, which expires at the end of June. The tax would generate about $2.8 million annually, and would go toward services to help “struggling” students; class-size reduction; support for art and music; and hands-on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs.
The text of the measure has broad language and gives the district spending latitude that includes support for “core” academic programs and providing “competitive” compensation for teachers to attract and retain a strong staff. In past years, the district has struggled with a high teacher turnover rate, and last year gave teaching staff an 8 percent salary increase.
Measure B requires a two-thirds yes-vote to pass. The measure would generate roughly the same amount of tax revenue as the expiring Measure C parcel tax.
The ballot argument in favor of Measure B claims that the preservation of parcel tax revenue plays an important role in ensuring that students are as prepared for high school as those coming out of the Los Altos School District and other neighboring schools.
“All children deserve the same outstanding education regardless of where they attend school,” according to the argument in support of the ballot measure, which was signed by school board president Jose Gutierrez, former Mountain View Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Carol Olson, and others.
District residents have supported a parcel tax since 2004 with the passage of Measure J, followed by Measure C in 2008. Under Measure C, property owners pay a varying amounts based on the size of the property; owners of properties 8,000 square feet or less paid $127, and owners of the properties larger than 44,000 square feet pay $1,016. Under Measure B, however, this “tiered” system will be replaced by a flat amount.
A flat tax isn’t unusual — the nearby Los Altos School District and Palo Alto Unified both have flat tax rates on all properties — but it was the subject of lengthy debate by the school board, with some members challenging a flat tax as unfair to smaller property owners. If Measure B prevails at the ballot box, most homeowners will be paying $64 more to support the existing level of funding.
But moving to a flat rate was defended as necessary to avoid a lawsuit. A 2012 decision by the California Court of Appeals ruled that school districts can levy taxes on property owners only if they are applied uniformly to all taxpayers or all real properties within the district.
In 2013, the California Supreme Court denied the request for a re-hearing, leaving in place the Court of Appeals ruling. As a result, a tiered system would be vulnerable to a court challenge if passed today.
But the ruling did little to clarify which taxes are legal and which are not, and left a cloud of uncertainty over what would constitute a “uniform” tax under the state Government Code. The Mountain View Whisman district’s legal counsel and parcel tax consultant have repeated that a parcel tax based on square footage would almost certainly be challenged in court, and that it would be best to stick with a flat tax rate.
Since the ruling, the vast majority of the 70 or so parcel tax measures that have passed in the state have been flat taxes, attorney Phil Henderson told the board at its Dec. 8 meeting. Only a few school districts have gone for a per-square-foot parcel tax, he said, and the ones that have are in the East Bay and are less likely to face a challenge.
“I think the risks of going with a parcel tax that does have a square foot differentiation … carries with it some risk,” he said.
Although some school districts were able to avoid a legal battle, others weren’t so lucky. Alameda Unified’s Measure B1 parcel tax, which has a tax rate of 32 cents per square foot, is currently facing a lawsuit by the same parties that sued the school district in 2008.
Charles Heath, the district’s parcel tax consultant, said a per-square-foot tax measure could also prompt property owners to mount a strong opposition campaign to Measure B. In 2003, the district attempted a 5-cent-per-square-foot parcel tax, and the Tri-County Apartment Association fought the measure and helped defeat it, Heath said. Since then, the district has been careful to craft measures that large property owners would support or remain neutral about.
In January 2015, two board members — Greg Coladonato and Steve Nelson — commissioned a second opinion by attorney O. Shane Balloun, who concluded that a per-square-foot parcel tax would be legal under the 2012 appeals court ruling. Because four board members are needed to put a parcel tax measure on the ballot, the district mothballed the parcel tax renewal until December, after Nelson’s term had ended.
Nelson, who authored the ballot argument against the measure, vented about the board president leaving the parcel tax off the agenda until after he was off the board, and said the flat tax rate would mean wealthy landowners would have to pay less to support public schools.
With Measure C set to expire in just a few months, board members took the conservative approach with the $191 flat tax, which board member Ellen Wheeler called a “pragmatic” decision in the face of so much uncertainty.
Hitting the campaign trail
Since the board’s January approval of placing the measure on the ballot, current and former district parents have been moving fast to support the Measure B campaign effort with phone banking, mailers, precinct walking and introducing the parcel tax to as many parents as possible.
“We’re trying to get people door-to-door as well as by mailbox and every avenue that’s available to us,” said Fiona Walter, Mountain View-Los Altos High School District board member and former Mountain View Whisman trustee.
Cleave Frink, a district parent and a Measure B campaign leader, said a key argument that resonates for voters is that all the money raised through the tax will remain in the community and go toward improving district schools. Over the next eight years, the money would maintain a wide range of programs and services that have improved the district’s 10 schools in recent years, he said.
The tax authorized by Measure B would be relatively small compared with those in neighboring school districts. Los Altos School District residents pay $820 with two measures in place — the larger of which never sunsets — and Palo Alto Unified School District residents voted in favor of a $758 measure last year.
Organizations supporting Measure B include the Santa Clara County School Boards Association, the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association, the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the local chapter of the League of Women Voters.
The Mountain View-Los Altos High School District’s board of trustees voted to endorse the measure last month, and all of the Mountain View Whisman district PTAs have endorsed the measure as of Tuesday, according to board member and parent Laura Blakely.
All Mountain View City Council members have come out in favor of the measure, as well as State Sen. Jerry Hill, Assemblyman Marc Berman and county Supervisor Joe Simitian.
The campaign has received support from both current and former district parents as well as current and retired school employees, who have volunteered to phone bank for Measure B. It takes some time to build momentum and remind people that campaigns don’t just happen by themselves, Walter said, but after weeks of recruitment she thinks the campaign is going well.
“Momentum is really on our side at this point,” Walter said.
Ballots were mailed out to district residents on April 3, and voters have until election day on May 2 to vote.
Drop-off sites include Mountain View City Hall at 500 Castro St. and the Santa Clara County Government Center on the first floor of 70 W. Hedding St. in San Jose. The Mountain View Public Library at 585 Franklin St. has an outside drop-box available 24 hours a day.
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