Our View: If the school district wants support, they must give
voters a spending plan as soon as possible
A few words of advice for school district trustees promoting the $96 parcel tax voters will see this June: Show us the spending plan.If the district wants two-thirds of voters to check “yes” come June, they need to know exactly where the money will go and how it will benefit the kids – period, dot, decimal. Contending that the parcel tax will add value to our already over-inflated home prices is not the way to woo voters’ support. Everyone knows our real-estate prices, like most of the rest of the state, are due to the simple economics of supply and demand.
Though the parcel tax’s price, a measly $8 a month, is affordable by even the most modest of incomes, voters must remember this is but one in a string of upcoming taxes they’ll see at the ballot booths. We plan to constantly remind them of the county’s half-cent sales tax, the likelihood of a city tax (be it a sales tax or otherwise), and rumblings the Valley Transportation Authority could revive their quarter-cent tax in time for the November election. All this while the state is considering the possibility of increasing the gas tax in lieu of a stalled, but massive multi-billion dollar bond for infrastructure improvements.
That tells us that voters better keep their eye on every penny, and there are no easy decisions when it comes to letting government into their pocketbooks. We haven’t made a decision on the district’s parcel tax, largely because even their best efforts to describe it, such as Tuesday’s guest column by the district president and vice president, only vaguely lay out a spending plan.
It’s clear our schools need more money, but where any money granted by the public goes is paramount. The district needs to decide in very specific terms how the money will be spent in a board-adopted policy as soon as possible. Now is not the time play political games in delaying this important disclosure.
Prove that it will be spent on improving education for the younger generation and the district will likely find the support it needs come June. Deny voters this and the measure is destined to fail.
