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Measure D - Pacifica Parcel Tax
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Election Date: June 7, 2016
Pacifica School District $118 Parcel Tax: Argument Against Measure D
This latest parcel tax from the Pacifica School District tries to use the state budget crisis to grab unearned money. The district wants to extend the 2010 parcel tax of $118 per year for another 10 years, while the enrollment in the district is declining.
Have they earned this extension that will cost you $1,180 over the next 10 years (on top of the money you are already paying)?
Let’s look at the student test scores for English learners attaining English proficiency:
2014-15 school year results: 66.1% meeting proficiency.
Source: California Department of Education Assessment and Accountability Division
If you got 66.1% of the answers right on a test, that would be a D grade, would it not?
Should you, the voters, reward a 33.9% failure rate?
If not, we encourage you to vote NO on Measure D.
The statewide average expense per student is $8,788 per year versus Pacifica School Districts’ $8,332 or 95% of the statewide average. Yet, they want more of your hard earn money to pad their salaries and fat pension plans.
The measure says that none of the funds will be used for administration. But, funds generated separately from this parcel tax can be used for administration expenses without limits. So, that is really an empty promise. Do not be fooled.
Here are the latest average teacher salaries for the district:
2013-14 – teacher average salary = $59,122 – statewide average = $71,094
Plus teachers get a super generous benefits package. Their “family plan” costs you $28,130 per teacher per year in benefits, while they only work an average of 184 days a year.
Tell the Pacifica School Board to be fiscally responsible by voting NO on_Measure_D
For more information please visit us at
http://www.svtaxpayers.org/2016-pacifica-school-parcel-tax
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Ravenswood City School District $26,000,000 BOND Measure H –
Rebuttal to the Argument in Favor
In 2000, voters in the district passed a $10,000,000 bond measure, meant to “improve technology.” And in 1996, a $6,000,000 bond to “improve technology.”
If you wanted a personal computer for your home or business, would you take out a 30-year loan at an unknown interest rate to pay for it?
That would be nuts, right? Especially because most technology is going to be obsolete in 3–5 years. But, decades of debt are exactly what the proponents of Measure H are pushing on us, with this bond.
Bond interest rates can legally go as high as 12% per year.
And because bond measures are like mortgages — they have to be paid back with interest — we should ask about the real cost of this $26,000,000 bond measure.
If we assume a 3% rate, that’s $780,000 per year, just in interest.
Over 30 years, that adds up to $23,400,000 in interest, plus the original bond amount of $26,000,000, for a total cost of $49,400,000.
That’s our hard-earned money squandered on investment bankers, not technology — let alone teachers.
What makes schools great is great teachers — not fancy classrooms or access to the trendiest computer technology.
By the time this bond measure is paid off, the technology it funded will be long ago obsolete, probably rotting in some landfill dump.
Just say NO to more debt. Vote NO on Measure H.
For more information, please see our web page:
www.SVTaxpayers.org/2016-ravenswood-city-bond-measure