Upping the ante
California must lower the bar for parcel taxes to pass for public education to survive in hard times
By Edwin Diaz 05/27/2010
For many years, the inadequacy and instability of public school funding in California has been widely known and well-documented. Despite a consistent call to prioritize education, California’s public schools have gone from among the highest funded to among the lowest funded in the nation over the past three decades. The accelerating decline in K-12 education funding has decimated school district budgets, resulting in the loss of thousands of teachers, reduction of academic and enrichment programs, and school closures statewide.
For Pasadena Unified, state budget cuts have translated into the loss of approximately $33 million over the past five years — $25 million in the last two years. And while per-pupil funding has declined, operational costs such as health and welfare benefits, equipment and supplies have continued to rise.
Despite assertions to the contrary, PUSD receives less per-pupil funding than most districts in the region. PUSD ranks 41st among 47 unified districts in Los Angeles County in unrestricted state revenue received, and 57 percent of the districts in Los Angeles County receive more money per pupil than PUSD.
PUSD has a high percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunch and receives additional funds earmarked strictly for services such as food, transportation and health to support low-income students. In personal finance terms, this is similar to a household operating on a fixed amount of income to meet monthly operating expenses that receives a gift card for a specific store. The gift card provides additional resources, but it may only be redeemed for certain items at certain locations, and it does not increase the household budget for daily expenses.
PUSD has had to rely primarily on a shrinking source of funding — unrestricted state revenue — to meet the instructional needs of the majority of students. State revenue cuts account for 94 percent of PUSD’s budget shortfall, and, as a result, PUSD’s structural deficit continues to grow.
PUSD has countered the decline in state revenue by reducing costs and improving efficiency to maintain the stability of its instructional programs and positions. The district has decreased administrative costs by more than $3 million over the past five years by cutting administrators, closing schools and eliminating departments, and another $2.6 million in centralized services reductions are planned next year. PUSD manages a leaner operation than most California school districts, allocating less than 5 percent of its budget to administration.
But now, facing the loss of an additional $23 million annually, resourcefulness, efficiency improvement and flexibility are no longer sufficient protection against a state budget that is both insufficient and inconsistent.
It is clear that communities will have to generate local resources to fill the gap created by the state’s budget crisis. Many districts are pursuing parcel taxes as a means to increase and stabilize funding. The results of those elections clearly show that more affluent communities have been able to pass parcel taxes while districts with high percentages of poor families have not been successful.
If this trend continues, we will have a stratified educational system in California where the quality of public schools is determined by community wealth, and kids from poor families get a poor education. This pattern is particularly destructive for urban districts like PUSD, where 66 percent of families qualify for free and reduced-price meals based on income level. If the state doesn’t act immediately, this inequity will worsen, and a public education system of haves and have-nots will be institutionalized.
Earlier this month, a majority of voters in the PUSD communities of Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre voted to approve Measure CC, a parcel tax that would have helped fund our schools. The measure didn’t get the super majority required for passage.
How is it possible that an election for funds that our schools so desperately need wins a majority, but in the end loses? Our students have proven their merit by gaining 53 points on the Academic Performance Index in the last five years, our schools have won state and national academic achievement awards, and our district has increased and strengthened its partnerships with parents, businesses and community organizations.
The current requirement of a two-thirds supermajority for passage of parcel taxes is difficult under the best of circumstances. In a fiscal crisis like the one our schools are now experiencing, it is nearly impossible, especially for school districts with a large socioeconomically disadvantaged population.
California must lower the threshold for passing the parcel tax to 55 percent so that the majority of a community can vote to support their public schools. All organizations and individuals who advocate for public education need to mobilize to address this issue and make it our most urgent priority.
Otherwise, they face the same fate as we do at PUSD: closed school libraries, the loss of some of our brightest new teachers and class sizes of more than 30 students in the crucial early grades. As our teachers articulated at a recent Board meeting, enough is enough.
Edwin Diaz is superintendent of schools for the Pasadena Unified School District, which serves approximately 19,000 students in the communities of Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre.
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Comments
Measure CC was unfair.
posted by pascaljim on 5/27/10 @ 04:53 p.m.
Ha Ha. Dream on Mr. Diaz. You are pitifully out of touch.
And what nerve by asking the voters to dismantle the hard-won protections won by Prop 13 in 1978 by removing the super-majority requirement for before adding more assessments to our property tax bill! Attempting to manipulate the system by lowering the bar to gain passage of a parcel tax is not the way to demonstrate that the PUSD is worthy of more money. PUSD needs to get its house in order and stop trying to game the system before asking for more money.