Community to Be Polled on Parcel Tax

Scotts Valley School Trustees have once again decided to turn to a poll to gather information and community input on a possible education parcel tax.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Board instructed Superintendent Penny Weaver to search for a polling firm to hire. Weaver has been given a budget of $8,000-$10,000 to spend. With the results of the poll, trustees are hoping to answer several key questions—the duration of the tax, the amount, and whether it should be a special mail-in ballot in May or be put on the June primary ballot.

This is the second time the district has polled the community about the parcel tax. In January, . At the conclusion of that poll, the firm citing that the district needed to do more outreach to the community and education people on the issues a bit more.

Currently, the district is facing a financial crisis. At Tuesday’s meeting, Chief Business Official Vicki Clark presented the First Interim Financial Report to trustees on the same day that Gov. Jerry Brown announced $1 billion in midyear budget cuts to the state budget. Clark said that essentially, with no changes, the SVUSD is spending about a half a million dollars a year and will have burned through its reserves by the 2014/15 school year.

“We won’t be able t to make it through that year if we don’t make other changes,” Clark said.

The District would require a minimum of $641,196 a year in additional funding to prevent severe reductions in services and programs, which is what trustees are hoping the parcel tax could bring in. If passed, the parcel tax would be used to maintain current programs in the schools and prevent further cuts.

“Hopefully that is plain and simple to everyone,” Trustee John Abel said. “We’ve done all the right things. There is no other option available at this stage in the game. If nothing else changes, we lose a half a million a year and in three years time we will be about a million in the hole—essentially bankrupt.”

The Board has already begun to draft the parcel tax resolution but would like to have some of the language cleaned up and come to a decision on the other key elements. Currently, trustees are not in agreement on the duration of the tax, with some wanting it to be for three years and some four. The amount of the tax is also in question, ranging from the low $70’s to low $90’s.

The Board is hopeful that conducting another poll will give them a better idea of what the community would vote for, giving them the best shot of getting the tax passed.

“We need the data to nail the money,” Abel said. “Every dollar we leave on the table is doing a disservice to our teachers.”

Trustee Art Bubb agreed, saying that the Board needs to get it right to build trust in the community.

“We need the success and we need to build confidence in this community. This is an incredible community and I think it will support good schools, but we need to have this decision based on data, not on our gut feelings,” Bubb said.

Board President Larry Beaman and Trustee Michael Shulman, along with parent advocate Derek Timm and possibly other community members, will assist the polling firm in crafting the questions on the poll to make sure the most critical information is collected. If the Board decides on a May 8 mail-in election, paperwork needs to be filed by Feb. 10. To get on the June 5 primary ballot, paperwork must be filed by March 15.

Weaver is expected to present a progress report on the search for a polling firm at the Board’s Jan. 10 meeting.