SRVUSD parcel tax renewal returning to voters in November

Voters in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District this November will again be faced with the question of whether or not to approve a renewal parcel tax measure that would continue providing funding to the district for another nine years after a similar measure and a supplementary parcel tax measure both failed to pass earlier in the year.

The SRVUSD Board of Education voted unanimously this week to place a renewal parcel tax measure on the November ballot that would extend a previous measure passed in 2015 that is set to expire next year.

The public hearing on the item before the board’s vote on a resolution to place the measure on the ballot garnered one comment, from longtime school tax critic Mike Arata.

“It appears that your new parcel tax measure will exclude the sneaky inflation escalator you attempted to slip past the public in May, but other deficiencies remain,” Arata said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The district spending increases since renewing the existing parcel tax in 2015 exceed SRVUSD spending back then by $126 million, adjusted for both inflation increases and enrollment drops, i.e. 3,000 fewer students now than in 2015. You’d have plenty of money for announced purposes already were you to be more responsible with existing resources, but SRVUSD always pleads poverty until it’s time for the next unmerited pay raise.”

Arata went on to point to the board’s agreement with unions in the district in 2021 following a lengthy negotiation process that resulted in an 8.5% pay raise for represented employees, which was also given to administrators including former superintendent John Malloy as part of a “me too” clause in administrator contracts at the time that traditionally gave cabinet members pay raises at the same rate as unionized employees. In the last academic year, the board has approved changes to superintendent and assistant superintendent contracts that removed that provision.

The upcoming ballot measure will seek to renew the existing $144 per parcel tax that was last approved by voters in 2015, going into effect for a nine-year term starting in 2016 and expiring in June 2025. If renewed, it is expected to bring in $6.5 million in funding annually over an additional nine years starting in 2025.

“The parcel tax currently funds approximately 48 classroom teachers in 2024, and the parcel tax is written to fund salaries for positions,” SRVUSD CBO Stella Kemp said in Tuesday’s meeting. “So if the parcel tax is not renewed, the district would have to identify reductions that will have to be made to make up those lost dollars.”

The forthcoming expiration of the current parcel tax is just one of many pending strains on the district’s finances, with the board having approved the elimination of more than 60 positions earlier in 2024 in an effort to balance the current fiscal year’s budget. At their previous meeting on June 18, they approved a resolution to direct staff to develop a budget reduction plan for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Later in the evening Tuesday, they discussed appointing board liaisons to a new budget advisory committee.

The board responded to an allegation from Arata that the positions funded by the existing parcel tax measure – which is not permitted to fund administrative salaries – correlates with an increase in administrative spending and “frees up” money in the General Fund to be used for that purpose.

Area 5 trustee Rachel Hurd said that if the existing parcel tax failed to be renewed and the board elected to eliminate the 48 teaching positions currently funded by it, the move would have little if any impact on the district’s administrative spending.

“We staff our administration based on our school and our student rates, so losing those teachers, if that was what happened – big if – it would mean higher class sizes, but I think everyone would have a really hard time with ‘OK, now this campus only has three quarters of a principal, or only one AP,'” Hurd said. 

“We’re already stretching our admin ratios further than most school districts do,” she continued. “People tend to think that public education is really fat in administration, and they’re really not. You look at the supervisory ratio of what number of people our principals manage, it’s far greater than in the corporate world.”

Area 4 Trustee Susanna Ordway and Area 2 Trustee Shelley Clark pointed to an exercise they’d participated in at a governance class for school districts throughout the state in which they’d learned that SRVUSD’s administrative spending is well below that of other districts.

“We were compared to many other school districts in the state of California, all different, some the same as ours, and our costs for administration in the school district was at the very bottom,” Clark said. “We were second to the bottom. So we are not overspending on our administrators or our administration. Those are really important people who are highly qualified, highly educated, and are not easy to replace.”

Clark went on to point to the board and district staff’s existing scrutiny and oversight of public funds in the budget, particularly parcel tax funds, and the district’s need to continue receiving the revenue being generated by the existing tax. 

“We are one of the lowest funded districts in the state, and this money helps us with more personnel and that affects our students in a positive way,” Clark said.

Board President and Area 3 Trustee Laura Bratt emphasized that if the renewal measure passes, it would maintain the existing tax rate that has been in effect since 2016 without adding additional costs. 

“It’s cost-neutral to our community,” Bratt said. “It’s not an additional tax burden. It’s the same tax burden.”

Area 2 Trustee Jesse vanZee pointed to the blow to the district’s finances that losing the funding from the existing measure would mean following budget cuts earlier in the year and a commitment by the board to cut costs by more than $16 million in the next budget cycle.

“We are at increasingly thin margins as we go into this, and so I think that’s one of the things that somebody who has, as a trustee, fiducial responsibility to make sure that we keep our schools running and going, that’s something that I’m considering as I look at these things,” vanZee said.

Hurd noted that in addition to maintaining funding for existing positions, the district was under increasing pressure to attract and retain teachers and staff amid a nationwide shortage and that eliminating or reducing pay raises would pose an additional strain on retention and recruitment. 

vanZee added that these were pressures throughout other industries as well, not just in education. 

“This is happening in corporations as well,” vanZee said. “You’re chasing after shortages of employees; you’re giving bigger bonuses to attract, and it costs more money to retain and to attract new talent. That’s the reality of the world we live in right now.”

Ordway moved to approve the resolution placing the measure on the November ballot, which was seconded by Clark and approved unanimously. 

District officials have until Aug. 9 to finalize the ballot measure and file required paperwork with the county.

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