Comments on: What school bonds pay for: From San Diego to Burlingame, the crime is what’s legal

By: Bell

Bell — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 23:26:13 +0000

I am genuinely thankful to the owner of this site who has shared this
enormous post at at this place.

By: C-Lion

C-Lion — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 01:44:17 +0000

Here is my retirement plan – move to a smaller state where the government is still controllable.
CA’s governments, at every level, behave as though there is no tomorrow AND that the bills, conveniently, will come due AFTER they’re gotten their goodies.
Speaking as a state native, you can keep your G-D “great weather.”

By: phil

phil — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:31:55 +0000

Measure B in Mill Valley is an operating budget parcel tax. Anyone mention what a scam it is after people just passed a massive bond last year for the replacement of perfectly fine schools is shot down by the school board, teachers union, and the rest of Mill Valley’s liberal crowd. I never realized just how psycho liberals are until you mention you might not agree with what they want you to pay for.

By: Rex the Wonder Dog!

Rex the Wonder Dog! — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:13:11 +0000

Since critical facts and figures aren’t being communictaed to voters, one can only conclude the board is deceiving voters
==
No, the troughies would try to rip us off, I dont believe it, say it aint so 😉

By: Wayne Lusvardi

Wayne Lusvardi — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:54:28 +0000

To Chris Reed
I am not an expert on school parcel taxes but I fought a parcel tax meant to fund a loss of librarians, music and art teachers, and others in my community in 2009. Here is my understanding of how school parcel taxes work:

A school construction bond financed with a parcel tax requires only 55% voter approval.

A school parcel tax to fund annual operating expenses or supplemental programs (music, arts, librarians, bus drivers, etc.) requires 66% voter approval.

Parcel taxes are NOT deducted from the state’s allocation of school funding under Proposition 98. So parcel taxes add to the local school budget. This is unlike redevelopment monies that were shifted to fund local public schools in 2010, which reduced the amount of state funding on a pro rata basis (dollar for dollar).

Unlike property taxes, parcel taxes are not deductible for state and federal income tax purposes.

Parcel taxes are not capitalized into property values. What I mean here is that a parcel tax is a flat tax per property owner unlike property taxes that are ad valorum (based on a tax rate on the property’s assessed value). This results in poor property owners paying the same annual tax as those with high valued properties.

Under Prop 218, a school parcel tax that does not underwrite a school construction bond could be put back on the ballot and repealed.

The biggest potential threat right now is not a wave of parcel tax initiatives spreading across the state but the formation of regional “Strategic Action Plan” under Prop 31 on the ballot for November. This could conceivably mandate that for a local school district to get its full share of property taxes for schools that it must form a regional “Strategic Action Plan” with other school districts. This could entail a mandate to share school property taxes between rich school districts in the suburbs (Palo Alto or San Marino) with poorer school districts (L.A. Unified or Oakland).

The intent of Prop 31 is to allow the formation of a new layer of local government that could petition the state legislature to adopt their own welfare rules, environmental compliance requirements, etc. But that is not how it may end up. What is more likely to happen is that the legislature will use coercive powers that come with revenue sharing and disbursements to mandate that suburban school districts share their school property tax allocation with big city school districts. If such should transpire, then wealthy suburban school districts might want to push for future local parcel taxes to offset what they lost due to tax sharing under Prop 31.

Links:
http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Parcel_tax
http://www.orrick.com/fileupload/259.pdf

By: John Galt

John Galt — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:53:57 +0000

Local voters who recenhtly read Chaffey Joint Union High School District’s Prop “P” literature for a bond measure funding high school facilities in the Ontario, Montclair and Rancho Cucamonga area find no specific project list and costs, nor a total funding amount. The only reference to the bond’s cost is an estimated tax levy of $19.94 per $100,000 of assessed property value. It is quite difficult for voters to actually discover Prop “P” is actually authorizing $845,000,000 in bonds to be issued. Since critical facts and figures aren’t being communictaed to voters, one can only conclude the board is deceiving voters. Not a good way to obtain approval for a loan, is it? Additionally, this is an excessively large amount of funds to be placed in the hands of local school board members, who are often voted in because they’re active soccer moms and soccer coach dads with kids in the schools, or, retired teachers and principals known by the voters. Charter schools anyone?

By: Rex the Wonder Dog!

Rex the Wonder Dog! — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:57:04 +0000

Every school district floats new bonds every two years, it is part of their strategy to fleece taxpayers while lining their own pockets.