Click here for a complete list of our election recommendations.
Five suburban East Bay school districts are seeking voter approval to borrow $1 billion for school construction. To pay that off, with interest, they will need to raise $2.3 billion from new property taxes over the next three decades.
It’s a bad time to seek more taxes to rebuild, expand or refurbish schools. Forecasts generally show declining student enrollment in the years ahead. Inflation is already eating away at household budgets. And the country is teetering on the edge of recession.
Yes, some schools would benefit from overhauls or replacements. But this is a time to focus on making do, to focus attention on pedagogy rather than aesthetics of the classrooms. After a two-decade boom in school construction, for which property owners will already face higher tax bills for years to come, it’s time to give it a rest.
At the very least, with so much money at stake, school districts should be fully transparent with voters about the cost of the bond borrowing. But they’re not.
Not one of the Nov. 8 measures even mentions the word “tax” in the summary on the ballot. Education leaders so badly torture the syntax of the summary to avoid using the T word that it should make high school English teachers cringe.
Related editorial: How school districts could be transparent with voters
School officials claim that the 75-word limit for ballot measures keeps them from clearly explaining to voters the amount of the tax for bond measures. It’s not very hard, if they only tried. Here is an example.
Each of these measures involves the district issuing bonds. That’s not free money. It’s a form of borrowing. The money has to be paid back — and that requires tax increases.
The tax amounts in the measures are substantial, further driving up the already high cost of homeownership. They come on top of another $1 billion of taxes to pay off outstanding debt for prior bond measures and, for three of the districts, additional annual parcel taxes to supplement school operations. Those are also details the districts don’t mention.
While it was not determinative, the deceptive ballot language employed by the districts played a key role in our evaluation this year.
As we explain in detail below, we recommend voters reject Livermore Measure G, Martinez Measure K, Pleasanton Measure I and Walnut Creek Measure J.
However, voters should back Measure J in the tiny Sunol Glen district. There, unlike the other districts, they haven’t sought voter approval for a school-construction bond since 1999, and the tax payments on those bonds are about to end.
Over the past decade, we have repeatedly said that the amount of the taxes should be clearly spelled out in the summary that appears on the ballot. The Alameda County grand jury has condemned the current deceitful practices.
We have even provided suggested wording — and do so again today — to demonstrate that, contrary to school officials’ claims, they can, within the 75-word limit, describe their measures, make explicit that they involve raising taxes and specify in terms readers can understand the amount of the tax. We have reinforced the message by spelling out the deceitful practices to avoid.
Since we began pressing this issue, there has been some small reform of the state law governing ballot-measure wording for tax increases, despite the fierce opposition of the school board association. Nevertheless, once again this year, the ballot wording remains opaque.
The amount of the tax is included in the ballot summary for all five measures because the law now requires it. But it’s never identified as a tax. For those unfamiliar with how bonds work, they’re just numbers of unspecified significance.
Moreover, those numbers are designed to make the taxes seem financially inconsequential when they’re not. The amount of the tax for a school bond measure is based on the assessed value of the property being taxed. But in four of the five cases this year, school officials try to make the amount seem small by expressing it as cents per $100 of assessed value rather than dollars per $100,000 of assessed value, which is more easy to translate and the common way such taxes are usually discussed.
It’s time to end this deceit. Sadly, elected school leaders, school superintendents, lawyers and bond industry advisors won’t do it on their own. And we can’t make them do the right thing. But until they demonstrate transparency, they should not count on our support at election time.
Livermore Measure G – No
Measure G would authorize $450 million of bonds to be paid back over 34 years with interest, bringing the total to $1 billion. Property taxpayers still owe $369 million in principal and interest on two prior voter-approved bond measures.
Until 2057, property owners would pay an average $57 annually for every $100,000 of assessed value to pay off the Measure G debt, and a total $83 per $100,000 assessed value for all outstanding bonds.
For a home with a district median assessed value of $580,000, that works out to about $479. Property owners also pay a $138 annual special parcel tax for district operations.
The district says the bond-money spending will include construction projects at Rancho Las Positas and Marilyn Avenue elementary schools and new classroom buildings at Junction Avenue K-8 School and Granada and Livermore high schools.
But we’re troubled by the lack of transparency. The district hasn’t put out a budget for the projects, which it says are part of the district’s master plan. That, the troubling ballot language, the two prior outstanding tax measures and the challenging economic times drive our recommendation to oppose the measure.
Martinez Measure K – No
Measure K would authorize $90 million of bonds to be paid back over 35 years, with interest, bringing the total to about $201 million. Property taxpayers still owe $242 million in principal and interest on two prior voter-approved bond measures.
Until 2057, property owners would pay an average $39 annually for every $100,000 of assessed value to pay off the Measure K debt. More immediately, for the first 10 years, they would pay each year an average $141 per $100,000 assessed value for all outstanding bonds.
For a home with a district median assessed value of $399,000, that works out to about $563 annually. Property owners also pay a $75 annual special parcel tax for district operations that will expire in 2024.
While we appreciate the intent of the capital-improvement program, voters have already passed two bond measures since 2010, and the district projects a 13% decline in student enrollment between 2017-18 and 2024-25.
We also note that district has used bond money to outfit every school with solar panels but has not directed the resulting $3.5 million energy savings so far toward repayment of the bonds. Rather the savings has been funneled into the general fund, effectively making the bond program an indirect subsidy to the general fund — and missing an opportunity to reduce taxpayer bond costs.
Pleasanton Measure I – No
Measure I would authorize $395 million of bonds to be paid back over 31 years with interest, bringing the total to $791 million. Property taxpayers still owe $278 million in principal and interest on a bond measure voters approved in 2016.
For the new debt, property owners would pay until 2054 an average $49 annually for every $100,000 of assessed value. From now until 2042, when the 2016 bond is paid off, the total tax bill for school bonds would average about $89 per $100,000 assessed value. For a home with a district average assessed value of $959,500, that would be about $856 annually.
District officials have identified about $1 billion of needed capital improvements. Their priority list will determine the Measure I spending and spread the improvements to every school in the district.
In 2020, the district failed to win enough voter support to pass a similar $323 million bond measure. Rather than trim back this time during challenging economic times, the district is asking for more money. That’s politically tone deaf.
Sunol Glen Measure J – Yes
Measure J, a $10.9 million bond proposal, modifies a 2020 measure that, with 51% support, fell shy of the 55% threshold required for school bonds.
The 2020 measure called for payments on new bonds to begin before old bonds, approved in 1999, were retired, resulting in a near doubling of the school-bond property tax levy for four years. Measure J begins the 33 years of new payments after the old bonds are retired in 2024.
The new tax would be about $52 for every $100,000 of assessed value, slightly less than the current rate. For a home with a district average assessed value of about $592,000 that works out to $308 annually.
The district’s main school building, which serves about 300 students, is nearly a century old and needs roof, electrical, plumbing, sewer, heating and air conditioning repair and updating. Bonds would also fund modernizing the cafeteria and constructing a new technology, engineering and math lab.
Despite the troubling ballot language, the district’s fiscal restraint on school construction justifies support of this measure.
Walnut Creek Measure J – No
Measure J would authorize $134 million of bonds to be paid back over 32 years, with interest, bringing the total to about $272 million.
Property taxpayers still owe on previously issued school construction bonds for the Walnut Creek district, which covers through the eighth grade, and the Acalanes High School District, as well as paying annual parcel taxes to help fund both districts’ operations.
The tax for the Measure J bonds would be about $22 for every $100,000 of assessed value. For a home with a district median assessed value of about $657,000, that works out to $144 annually. Add in the other special school taxes and the total would be about $921 in 2024.
Measure J is the second phase of the school district’s school construction program that began with voter approval in 2016 of a $60 million bond. The budgeting for the next phase is very rough. Moreover, the decision to seek more than twice as much as six years ago is ill-timed for the current economy.
