The Palo Alto school district’s $800 parcel tax has failed, the first time the district’s voters have rejected a school tax in 22 years.
A parcel tax needs two-thirds of the vote for approval. As of Wednesday night, with 100% of precincts reporting, the vote for Measure B was:
Yes 7,289 — 60.83%
No 4,694 — 39.17%
There are still some uncounted ballots, but they’re not enough to give the “yes” the necessary 66.7% for passage.
The tax would have raised $14.5 million. However, opponents — including former school board members Todd Collins and Ken Dauber — argued that regular property taxes have increased over the years, providing the additional funds that a parcel tax would have provided, making the tax unnecessary.
The district has $100 million in reserves.
The teachers union supported Measure B. The union is negotiating for bigger paychecks.
Palo Alto voters are typically generous with school parcel tax and bond measure votes. The last time voters rejected a Palo Alto schools parcel tax was in 2004. However, supporters successfully regrouped and convinced voters to pass a modified measure in June 2005.
Oh no, the teachers won’t get those big raise after all?!
Based on your sentence construction there Action, I can tell you are not a product of Palo Alto Schools.
You’re right, Hal, a “product of the Palo Alto schools” wouldn’t know how to spell “teachers” and would blindly accept higher taxes when they’re unnecessary.
Late counting votes (probably almost half left) usually swing toward the liberal side for both candidates and referendums. Too early to say this will be defeated.
The pro-B side has got to pick up six points in the late ballots. That seems impossible to me.
I guess if teacher raises were tied to parcel taxes I would have been getting big raises throughout my whole career. Why didn’t that happen? The narrative of big teacher raises is just that, a narrative that is not based in reality. Teachers, in general, have to fight to keep pace with inflation and the fact remains that any PAUSD teacher that has been hired in the last twenty years and is the sole bread winner in a household (living solo, with a spouse, or with children) does not stand a chance of affording a home in Palo Alto. They really can’t afford the rents in the area either. Prospective teachers know that going in, yet they do the job anyhow. Why? I guess you’d have to ask them. This myth of greedy teachers is just silly.
If you want to make real money, the key is to find your way into one of the nice jobs at 25 Churchill that pay three times that of a new teacher. Don Austin did a masterful job of creating vague or glowing titles (Assistant Superintendent for Agility and Innovation, Chief of Staff) and paying out big money (usually a quarter million and up) for loyalty as opposed to actual job performance. Yearly raises for these jobs tended to be in the 5% to 10% range.
You are right, however Action Jackson, the new board and “leadership team” at 25 Churchill will surely cry financial crisis, as they normally do, and teachers will come out on the short end, as they normally do. Yet most teachers will soldier on, as they normally do. It actually does take a special person to do the job. Maybe you are one of them.
Not good a sign for Palo Alto, especially when they never really had problems passing parcel taxes, like the article states since 2004. Looks like the community doesn’t believe in the current management because of all the dysfunction, lawsuits and the lack of transparency about poor management under Don Austin, including allegations of a bullying culture that was allowed to flourish. Maybe the community would have more faith if current board members and management would seriously start addressing these issues by running an independent and honest investigation into Mark Herrera’s hiring in 2024 and the aftermath of alleged employee issues involving himself, his manager, and every single one of his supervisors. Truth is still step #1. PAUSD should try and stop the bleeding now by actually investigating and demanding resignations before the truth inevitably comes out, which may cost the Palo Alto tax payers even more money for possible future settlements and NDA style employee separations.
Proponents should’ve done it the cool new way with an initiative like Measure D. 50% will vote for any tax.
As a basic aid/community-funded district, PAUSD isn’t overly dependent on state or federal funding. Less than ~10% of PAUSD’s funding comes from external (i.e., non-local) revenue. We are already “self-sufficient” and less exposed to funding decisions from the state or federal level, so it’s hard to imagine a realistic scenario where we’d need to cling to the parcel tax as our lifeboat due to extreme national instability. And $14.5 million wouldn’t go very far in a doomsday scenario, anyway.
Here’s what I see as the real benefit of Measure B failing: It will hopefully force the district to have tough conversations about what actually moves the needle for student outcomes.
Perhaps we will finally ask: what are we spending money on that is wasteful? Maybe an objective review would find that some current initiatives are wholly unnecessary (and in some cases, even detrimental). Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of iReady, Wayfinder, WestEd for the middle school skip test, and a couple of district office admin roles that seem redundant. I’m sure clear-eyed insiders could think of many, many more ways to boost efficiencies all without impacting teacher salaries or the programs that do make a difference.
It’s a vote of no confidence in the school board, that’s all.
And the bloated Administration …
Exactly HE him……
Without a doubt, if this indeed does not pass, is the WRECKAGE AND LEFTOVER STINK OF DON AUSTIN AND HIS PARTNER IN CRIME TRENT B! This is the community telling PAUSD and the Board to get their sh……together. Did the district and teachers really expect the community to go for a parcel tax after paying Colombo, Donnie, and Trent just under 5 million to go away, that includes medical also. This is a clear message to the district: get you SH…… together and enough with all the drama, woke B.S. etc…..just educate our kids on curriculum and will will raise our kids at home. The board is now leaning that way anyways and especially more with the woke cop Duhup leaving soon. I guarantee once the district gets it together and starts doing things the right way the community will absolutely vote yes on any future tax increases for schools. It is just a shame that teachers have to pay the price for Don and Trent’s corruption, corruption at the very highest levels! Let’s not forget how much the Palo Alto Weekly RAG NEWSPAPER helped Donnie and Trenton, along with the Dauber’s, carry out all the corruption.
Man, have you ever proof read a comment before? Spelling? Grammar? Is it totally lost on you? Your comment is a wreck and it sure does stink. Any points you’re trying to make are lost in this absolute mess of a comment. Try a little harder next time, please. For all of our sakes. I wish I could sit with you in person and talk you through how distracting the grammar and spelling is.
When I heard that the teachers union was demanding a 28% raise over two years, I knew I couldn’t vote for this tax. Most of us taxpayers are just trying to get by, and then the teachers arrogantly demand this kind of raise?
The teachers’ union did not ask for a 28% raise. Unfortunately, the district presenting inflated or misleading numbers during negotiations is a tactic we’ve seen before.
Yes, they did ask for a 28% raise when benefits are included. The union wants to make it sound like they weren’t being greedy and will say anything to pretend they didn’t ask for a 28% raise.
The union is responsible for the defeat of the parcel tax — the first one to fail in more than 20 years.
While the union certainly did their part, they have to share the blame with the school board. They spent the last 18 months generating conflict and controversy (ethnic studies, advanced math, 9th grade bio, high-paid firings, not to mention racially-tinged online trolling of their own staff). And then they ignored their new financial reality, with $100M in the bank and high and rising revenue per pupil. No wonder the renewal vote dropped from 77% in 2020 to just 61% today – by far the lowest support since the parcel tax began.
Siily Goose,
You are correct, and I take ownership of my grammatical errors. To clarify my point: if the tax does not pass, it will be due to Donald and Trenton’s mismanagement of the district. Once the school board addresses the pending lawsuits and refocuses on the core curriculum rather than outside issues, Palo Alto taxpayers will likely support future school taxes.
Again, thank you Silly Goose for being so helpful and I apologize for being such a distraction in your life. I’m off to my grammar and spelling class on this early Thursday morning and you have a fantastic day!
Thank you! I hope I will see this improvement reflected in your future comments. Not to nitpick, but Trent’s full name is just Trent- not Trenton.
Always a fan,
Silly Goosery
Please. The union “demand” was just a negotiating tactic designed to highlight the “affordability issue”. Kind of a ridiculous tactic, but a 28% raise has never happened and never will happen. It sure is convenient to blame the ills of PAUSD on the union, but the union has been there since day one and the district has not always been as dysfunctional as it has under the Austin regime. Austin was hired and paid an inflated salary to “change the culture of PAUSD”. He sure did so, but one would be hard pressed to argue for the better. Is it also possible that the union “demand” was a response to Austin’s heavy-handed tactics and the ballooning salaries handed to his loyal cronies at 25 Churchill?
Teacher salaries have always been on the low end of the “professional scale”, and they are quite inadequate given the demands placed on teachers by PAUSD and the cost of living in the Bay Area. That said, 28% is silly, but maybe the 5% to 10% regularly accorded 25 Churchill “leaders” is more reasonable. Teachers will be lucky to even get that. If paying teachers enough to stick around kills parcel taxes, then the system is in a lot of trouble. I’m pretty sure there was more to the parcel tax defeat than “greedy teachers”.
The only people benefiting from the school board’s policies are lawyers, not taxpayers, students or teachers. But you get what you vote for.
Most teachers just want the “American Dream” to own a home and raise a family. That will no longer happen in Palo Alto or surrounding communities. We are destined to societal collapse when we no longer value our educators as part of the community. Newer teachers are merely “day workers” who come to provide a service and leave. The school Board created this atmosphere and the new culture of Palo Alto tax payers has no problem with it.
I remember when I voted for funding for smaller class sizes and the teachers union immediately demanded a massive pay increase wiping out the additional revenue. The results were class sizes stayed the same. Between the bad board, bad senior administration and teachers union and policies meant to handicap excellent students, no votes from us. Get your acts together first.
This is a “come to Jesus” moment for the school board. Instead of gaslighting the community about what a great job the schools do, it’s time for the board to find out why a majority of families in Palo Alto send their kids to private school. (Source: Private School Review, Parents Press, 12,597 students attend 37 private schools. PAUSD published enrollment: 10,271)