Commentary by Dennis Green
Not Again!
Too Soon, Too Much.
No on Measure E!
There are many good reasons to vote NO on the upcoming new school parcel tax, which would last eight years and, at $659 per year for residential real estate, would be an increase of 114% over Measures A&H combined, which equal $309 per year and don’t even expire until the end of 2012.
1) If you’re among the 55% of Alamedans who don’t own real estate, rising home prices — whether they’re tied to schools or not — do not benefit you. In fact, they make Alameda less affordable for middle class people, and raise the rents and taxes and all other prices on the island.
2) The parcel tax initiative would do an end-run on legislation pending in Sacramento that would reduce the requirements to pass a parcel tax from 2/3 of the voters to 55%, but would also limit any new parcel tax to $250. AUSD is attempting to thwart the intention of such a legislative compromise.
3) The initiative says it will “exempt seniors and the disabled” from having to pay the new tax, but in the past many disabled have not qualified for the exemption, and seniors have to sign up during a brief, unadvertised window of opportunity every year to receive the exemption, and many seniors fail to qualify. This so-called “exemption,” however, makes it easier for the backers to achieve the 2/3 necessary margin.
4) Property values in Alameda, regardless of high property and parcel taxes going to the schools, regularly suffer depressed markets — by 40% in the early 1990s and again in 2008. Expensive schools are no guarantee of high prices, even for the 45% of voters who own real estate.
5) High expenditures on public schools are no guarantee of quality outcomes or excellence in teaching. If they were, Oakland schools would be twice as good as Alameda’s, (and the housing prices there would be double ours,) since they spend twice as much per pupil as AUSD does.
6) The language of the parcel tax initiative is intentionally vague, because, as School Board Trustee and Board Vice President Mike McMahon says, “We don’t want to tie our hands to specific expenditures because we won’t see the State budget until much later this year.” But that means there is no relationship between the initiative, its spending, and the new Master Plan.
7) Even the new Master Plan, which was formulated in part by political consultants Erwin & Muir, contains many inefficiencies — such as keeping smaller, underenrolled “neighborhood schools” open, code language for schools distinguished by de facto segregation. Also requires special teachers for art, music and P.E. classes for elementary schools.
8) California, and especially Alameda, already have some of the highest taxes in the nation. Even with Prop. 13, there are sixteen states with lower property taxes than California, including Oregon, Nevada and Utah, which often poach businesses away from our state.
9) There are many questionable expenses in the AUSD budget — including a full-time attorney with staff support, well over $217,000 in expenses fighting lawsuits filed against the last parcel tax, (of the very sort which will be filed against the new one as well), a “webmaster” who happens to be the daughter of Trustee Mike McMahon, $300/hour to Erwin & Muir, and $140,000 earmarked for a new “development director.”
10) Most compellingly, a “Yes” vote encourages waste in school spending, a lack of accountability and transparency, and simply delays the kinds of radical reforms desperately needed in American education — features of President Obama’s “Race to the Top” Program and Funding — such as teacher evaluation, merit pay, parental school choice, classroom discipline and the Virtual Classroom, all in return for extra funding.
©2010 Dennis Green
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