BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A rare battle has begun over the Palo Alto Unified School District’s proposal to renew its parcel tax.
Measure B is opposed by two former board members and supported by elected officials, nonprofit leaders, realtors and teachers. Ballots were mailed out on Monday.
The district has experienced a lot of instability this year, so voters should support Measure B to provide some financial stability, teachers union president Tom Culbertson said in an interview. “This community has demanded the highest and best-quality education, and there is investment required to make that sustainable,” Culbertson said.
Culbertson is one of nine supporters who signed the arguments in favor of the $800 per year parcel tax that would bring in $14.6 million annually for the district. Culberton is also part of the union negotiating team that is trying to hammer out a new contract for teachers.
This year the district has seen its longtime and acting superintendent leave, a $3.25 million settlement with a former teacher and about a dozen lawsuits from parents, students and former employees.
“The board is trying to find a path forward, and choosing a new leader is a massive task,” Culbertson said.
Former school board members Ken Dauber and Todd Collins oppose Measure B. Usually current and former school board members endorse parcel taxes. Dauber and Collins said student enrollment has fallen while property taxes have gone up, and the board should spend more than $100 million in reserves.
“It’s as if the district collected the last parcel tax and simply stuck it in the bank,” Dauber and Collins said in an argument against Measure B.
Amount per student
The district now gets $35,000 per student — double the level in 2014 when the district was already well-funded, Dauber and Collins said.
Dauber and Collins said the district didn’t plan for its reserves to grow from $25 to $100 million since 2019.
“It just happened as revenue piled up beyond the district’s needs,” they said. “Let’s not collect another parcel tax just to make the district’s bank account even bigger.”
Collins and Dauber said the board focused solely on how much they thought voters would approve — not what students actually need.
If Measure B is rejected, then the board will return with “a more reasonable proposal” on the November ballot, Dauber and Collins said.
Credibility questioned
Culbertson questioned their credibility yesterday, because Dauber and Collins were on the board from 2014 to 2022 as reserves skyrocketed.
Culbertson criticized Collins and Dauber for hiring and renewing the contract of former Superintendent Don Austin, who resigned on Feb. 20 with a $596,802 payout.
“They’re responsible, and maybe they should’ve taken a different path,” Culbertson said. “They were the trustees during most of what led us to this moment.”
Supporters are school board president Shounak Dharap, Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, former Councilwoman Alison Cormack, former school board member Susie Richardson, realtors Brian Chancellor and Maggie Ma and nonprofit leaders Lisa Van Dusen and Yudy Deng.
Supporters said the board has relied on a parcel tax since 2001 and compromised by reducing the rate from $941 to $800.
Not outrageous
Supporters also said $35,000 per student isn’t outrageous — it’s in line with great public schools in Los Altos, Woodside, Menlo Park and Mill Valley.
The district’s healthy emergency reserves would be depleted within three years without the tax, leading to teacher layoffs, supporters said.
Advanced Placement and honors classes, support for mental health and disabled students and advanced programs like robotics and engineering are on the chopping block if Measure B fails, supporters said.
“Even if you do not have school-age children, supporting quality local schools is a wise investment. Good schools improve the quality of life in our community and protect the value of our homes,” supporters said.
“advanced programs like robotics and engineering ” Funding for those programs comes from federal Perkins Act,and state-specific grants (e.g., California’s Golden State Pathways). Unless it has changed, for the past decade, these programs were run by selective clubs where unless you are a chosen by club members you can not use the machine tools or shops. The reality is the money will be used to pay educators more as well as add another shell in the Districts monetary shell game. I support funding educators but not fabricating statements that are really not true? Notice no specifics were shared in the yes on B statements.
The tax is needed to pay for the union’s proposed 28% (teachers) and 47% (non-teachers) raises.
Sign up for the PAEA newsletter. Teachers are asking for 9%. District is offering 4.5%.
Daily Post, Feb 6, 2026: “School unions seek 28% pay increase for teachers, 47% for non-teachers”
[Portion removed — Terms of Use violation. Please don’t post links.]
No way on earth will teachers get a 28% raise. As is often the case, such numbers are an accumulation of raises in a multi-year contract. In other words, a three-year contract that specifies a 3% pay increase for each year is referred to as a 9% pay raise. If that is not the case here, then 28% is a symbolic number and a bargaining tool.
That said, it is interesting that former board members who guarded reserves like Fort Knox and touted AAA bond ratings are now advocating “raiding the fort”.
Personally, given the amount of taxpayer dollars allocated for inflated salaries coupled with convoluted jobs held by 25 Churchill “Team” members, untended window dressing “initiatives”, redundant or underused technologies, silly surveys replete with high paid consultants, and shoddy construction projects with scant oversight, I would find it difficult to support a parcel tax until the district can demonstrate more fiscal responsibility.
In 27 years of teaching, I never received an excessive pay raise (though we were usually told by leadership that our raises spurred financial crises), and if anything, my responsibilities grew as my resources shrank. Honestly, if parcel taxes had an impact, it was hard to see it at the ground level. Maybe tapping into the reserves would cause all players to spend more judiciously, and if such an approach fails, another parcel tax can always be proposed. Choose carefully voters, and hold your leaders accountable, or else you will get what PAUSD had under the corrupt Austin regime.
No on B. Student enrollment has dropped.PAUSD caused its own issues and taxpayers need not pay for that.
School officials — both unions and administrators — never tell the truth about pay raises. Even if the contract called for a 0% raise, everybody’s pay will be going up because of step and column. You move up one square per year, automatically, and get a higher wage. The public is never told about step and column because, if they knew, they’d never vote for another parcel tax again.
The teachers salary scale replete with step and column details has been readily available on the PAUSD website for decades. Really easy to find and interpret. In other words, no secrets and the public is told in black and white about teacher pay.
It took me 30 years of teaching, maxed out step and column professional growth units, and a master’s degree to reach my pinnacle salary of $150K per year. Hey, I’m not complaining, but I earned every penny. Luckily I bought a fixer upper home 27 years ago 15 miles from my former PAUSD school. I swung my own hammer with help from family to make the home livable.
No way on earth I’d even come close to qualifying for my home today on the aforementioned “highest paid year”. Thanks Lili for pointing out the perceived deception. It takes very little effort to get “the facts” however. And the fact is that without another much bigger income, or outside help, teachers will not be able to live anywhere near the children and parents they serve. That is the truth.