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By KERRY BENEFIELD
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Facing $8.3 million in potential cuts in the upcoming school year, Santa Rosa City Schools officials are considering putting a tax measure before voters in November.
Sonoma County’s largest school district is wrestling with cutting as many as eight furlough days, reducing the budget reserve from 3 percent to 1 percent and increasing class sizes.
“We are at a point of almost desperation,” school board member Tad Wakefield said Tuesday. “I feel like it’s responsible to look into it, although I am sensitive to the burdens of Santa Rosa citizens. I know nobody wants to be taxed into the ground.”
District officials are set to begin crafting the 2012-2013 budget without knowing how much money education will receive in the Legislature’s final spending plan or how Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed $7 billion tax initiative will fare with voters in November.
Board members could vote tonight on whether to commission a voter sentiment survey to test voters’ affinity for either a bond measure or a parcel tax.
Bonds can be used only for buildings and other capital improvements, such as solar installations, and need 55 percent of voters to say yes. Parcel taxes can be used for teachers, programs and supplies but require a two-thirds vote.
Bonds impose a higher tax bill on more costly homes, parcel taxes assess a flat rate for every property.
Officials expressed some unease with spending general fund money on a voter survey, whose cost is not yet determined, but Superintendent Sharon Liddell said it’s the only way to judge whether the district should press forward.
“If we are going to attempt to get a bond or parcel tax that is going to support the district the way it needs to be supported, we need to be smart in how we do it,” she said. “That means we need to go to our community and find out their views, and we can’t do that without a poll of some kind.”
How that survey is conducted and how the district establishes spending priorities is crucial, said board Vice President Bill Carle.
“You need to set your priorities and say where you are deficient,” he said.
The district should not ask voters to write trustees a blank check without outlining exactly what tax dollars would support, said Santa Rosa Teachers Association President Andy Brennan.
“With people hurting as it is right now, we have to give them specific things: ‘This is going to benefit your child by ‘blank,’ ” he said.
“If money comes in, we need to keep class sizes small. As much as I’d like to tell my members we’re getting a raise, we need to focus on the important stuff — smaller class sizes, no eliminating programs, counselors, things like that.”
Key to the discussions will be whether voters are more inclined to support a parcel tax which, can be used to pay for programs like art and sports, or whether it will be limited to a bricks and mortar bond package.
Sonoma County voters have shown support for school bonds amid years of cuts to education from Sacramento.
Voters in eight Sonoma County school districts approved a total of $141 million in bond measures in 2010.
Santa Rosa has been successful in its last four attempts to pass bond measures: A $77 million high school and $19 million modernization effort in 2002; $12 million for elementary school libraries in 1997; and $129 million in 1991 to build Elsie Allen and Maria Carrillo high schools.
Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.
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We have $880 in school bond charges on our annual tax bill already. In a time of foreclosures where people are struggling to keep their homes we are also “at a point of almost desperation” and need the pocket picking to stop!!!! EIGHT HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DOLLARS. Enough is enough!!!
I went to Santa Rosa City Schools website
http://www.srcs.k12.ca.us/default.asp
and ran a search for “budget” and “pension”. Neither word showed up for the entire site. Aren’t the School Budget and pension obligations public information? And, if so, where can you find them? You would think the School Board would want to make that information readily available so that people can be more informed when they get surveyed about another tax increase.
http://www.srcs.k12.ca.us/default.asp
Public unions caused the $500B unfunded pension liability in CA. Union heads ARE the “1%” that people seem to want to attack. The recently retired SF police chief collects a pension 40% higher than any year she ever worked as a police office. 40%! $277,656 per year for NOT working. SHE IS THE 1%. The PV of her pension is over $4M.
So the chief position in San Francisco pays almost $600,000/year because the union bribed the politicians into allowing people who don’t work to keep getting paid.
This happens in every city, every county and every state. We ALL will have to foot this bill eventually. The next great recession will come when the bill for all the unfunded pension liability causes massive layoffs, excessive taxes and strangles the economy.
Corruption in DC is completely different. BOTH parties are on the take. Obama is the biggest one of them all, lying to everyone that he wouldn’t take private money while running for the Democrat nomination and then taking private money after winning. They are all corrupt.
Great points Jim. I still remember 2008, when those greedy public union caused the Great Recession, which continues to negatively affect the economic and our states’, counties’, and cities’ abilities to operate. Public Unions are the 1% hording 95% of our nation’s wealth. Thank God for insightful people like you, Jim.
So what’s with the big brew-ha-ha, this is perfectly understandable
Not long ago we had the 99ers demand the rich should give to the lesser class.
So why not ask the property owners to foot the bill with the schools
This is basic economics 101, it’s called trickle down ewwwffect
Sad part, these are educators
Supply and demand
Cause and effect
Maybe learn how to use a check book
Or give businesses equal opportunity, <<< it’s called revenue
@Ina Coolbrith…Greedy Republican Bankers?
Interesting philosophy about the economic “mess” but it isn’t based on reality. The media loves to attack Goldman Sachs and “Wall Street”. They fail to mention Obama was the largest benefactor of Wall Street bribes, I mean “donations”. Barney Frank (a Democrat I think) was instrumental in the Fannie & Freddie collapse.
Excessive public Union driven salaries and benefits have bankrupted every city, county and state government. It isn’t about “union haters”, it is about PUBLIC unions. A private company that wants to allow themselves under the control of union labor is their business. The auto industry (bankrupt), the airline industry (bankrupt), grocery stores (can’t compete with non-union stores), etc all allowed union labor. Consumers can choose NOT to pay the excessive prices caused by union contracts. When it comes to public unions, where the excessive salaries and benefits comes from ever increasing taxes and deficits, there is a problem. The people have no say in paying their taxes like they do with paying the higher prices caused by private union labor.
“Almost to the point of desperation?”. When a business gets there, the business owner decides to cut duplicating expenses first. Why is it that we never hear about a plan to reduce the number of administrators by eliminating/consolidating school districts? “They” will tell you the illogical response “it is not clear that fewer districts will save money”. Until they can figure out how to cut their pensions/districts/administrative pay/political contributions/free lunches/etc., I say no to more taxes. Maybe that will more clearly define that elusive “point of desperation” so they will reform their broken model.
Giving free breakfast and lunch to every latino student in the city is a huge burden. Since when are schools required to feed AND babysit these students that are dragging down test scores. California is so bad they had to come up with their own testing system so they dont compete with other states
Greedy Unions are stealing from our kids.
Its disgusting. Target other people, dont target our kids
This is the reflexive action of local govt., like Pavlov’s dog the school district drools whenever the dinner bell rings. Should we blame them? Every time they ask for more money we give it to them. They know that most voters in this county are idiots, and will thoughtlessly check the box for more bonds.
Spend General Fund Money on a SURVEY?
Didn’t we ALREADY do that?
Wasn’t the damn ELECTION you won paid for from General Fund Money?
Maybe we should just fund NEW ELECTIONS since we so painfully, obviously failed to elect LEADERS in the last one!
And yet in the midst of all this they have added an entirely new grade level.
The train will bring jobs and much needed conjestion relief. But it is decidedly off topic for this forum. It is the logical fallacy of the red herring.
“Officials expressed some unease with spending general fund money on a voter survey, whose cost is not yet determined, but Superintendent Sharon Liddell said it’s the only way to judge whether the district should press forward”.
How about the School Board members go out and each talk to 50 people they don’t know personally as find out for themselves. Then reduce the tax increase they ask for by the cost saved by not paying for the poll.
The county, state and feds are broke and every government entity wants to create some sort of “add-on” tax. We are now at the point that every penny counts and we must spend wisely. Duplication in school administration needs to be eliminated and EVERYONE that uses the services of our public schools needs to pay not just property owners! I say support our schools, kids, teachers and invest in our future rather than blow $400 million on a train to no where, very few will use and $40 million plus on an airport which already serves the needs of most users. If anything is left we can repair our horrible roads. Let’s spend money on the most needed services which are most used.
@Ina
“Republican Bankers”?
Are you referring too the same “Republican Bankers” who made Barack Obama the #1 recipient of campaign contributions from…
THE BANKING INDUSTRY??!!!
(Republican bad, Democrat good, Republican good, Democrat bad)
BOTH parties are screwing us!
The schools will soon be pushed to require proof of citizenship before allowing stundents in the classroom.
The problem with giving something away for free when you have an unlimited demand is that you have shortages.
Wakefield has made his Latino objective quite clear, and now that we have added an entirely new class level (prekindergarden) you can see how our educational system is about to imploid on itself and its liberal agenda.
Politicians are once again holding a gun to our kids heads and demanding more money – this is the definition of extortion and Jerry Brown is the leader. I will never vote for more taxes while the Prison, Fire and Police continue to get paid 20% over the going rate accross the board and have benefits that are bankrupting the state and local governments! Wake up people – do you really think more taxes will solve the problem, or will it just fund the 11% increase in the budget for the prison system this year?
Governor – educate, not incarcerate.
Who paid for your education, even if you didn’t learn? Your kids education? You could start with single renters and go on from there. If you have 3 or more kids, you are a welfare recipient.
When the school districts reorganize, slim down the adinistration, deal with teacher pay, we would consider more school taxes.
How many times can the school board come to well and ask for more when they have done very little to fix the problems that have plagued the district for years?
No new taxes for schools from me.
They knew this budget squeeze was coming for years and they refused to take proper action.
There is no way I would suppport any additional taxes until and unless there is a true re-evaluation and house cleaning in the education system. The State budget clearly shows that education receives the vast majority of revenue from the general funds, add to that the other funds that education programs receivce locally (as discussed in the above article), it would appear that we may (just maybe) be overspending or at a minimum not spending correctly. Has anyone bothered to look at the number of schools and districts located in Santa Rosa, or anywhere else for that matter. The numbers are overwhelming. Lets get back to basics, get rid of duplication of functions/depts and the large number of administrative layers and then we can talk about tax increases.
OMG! Can the Crazy Union Haters Give it a rest for once. Working Folks didn’t cause this economic problem, your greedy republican bankers did. No wonder everyone but the Tea Party has abandoned this website. It’s like a right wing echo chamber in here…
Greedy Unions are destroying our schools, our future, and our country.
Greed is not good