Lower-income districts would benefit from 55 percent parcel tax threshold, study suggests

Only virtually one in eight school districts in California have passed a parcel taxation, and they predominantly take been wealthier and smaller districts. But if the threshold for passing a bundle tax were dropped from a two-thirds bulk to 55 percent, an EdSource assay suggests more districts with larger enrollments of low-income students would pass them.

Virtually of the parcel taxes passed in the last xxx years were for less than $99 per package. Source: Raising Revenues Locally; Ed-Data Parcel Taxation Ballot Database. (Click to overstate)

"Raising Revenues Locally," an extensive look at three decades of parcel taxes, institute that, had the 55 percent threshold been in consequence from the get-go, 87 percent of parcel tax proposals overall would have passed, compared with merely over half canonical under the two-thirds requirement. Those districts in between 55 percent and two-thirds had a significantly college per centum of English learners and low-income children than the districts that successfully enacted a parcel tax nether current law.

A Senate committee on Wed will hear SCA 3, a proposed ramble subpoena by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that would lower the threshold for passage to 55 percent. Democrats take been eyeing the opportunity for a lower threshold for a decade, simply only now, with a two-thirds bulk in the Legislature, do they stand a good take chances of putting it before voters. Getting voter approval is far from certain, even though passage on the November 2022 ballot would take only a bulk. Two polls this twelvemonth, by the Public Policy Institute of California and by USC Dornsife/LA Times, found less than half of voters liked the idea.

Merely about one in eight districts accept passed a parcel tax over the past 30 years. Source: Raising Revenues Locally; Ed-Data Packet Revenue enhancement Ballot Database. (Click to enlarge)

Package taxes must be uniform by law: Cottages and mansions must pay the aforementioned amount, and lower-income communities, dominated past apartment buildings that pay a single parcel revenue enhancement, tin can raise less money than cities of single-family homes. A handful of districts have sought ways around this past charging various rates for different sizes and classes of properties, just terminal December, in Borikas vs. Alameda Unified, a state Appeals Court substantially restricted that ability. The district has appealed the ruling.

Although parcel taxes are not a progressive form of revenue enhancement, they as well are ane of the few ways that local districts can boost revenues for local schools. Since bundle taxes were accounted legal in 1983, 222 districts – 23 percent – take put a parcel tax on the ballot, but only 124 – 13 percent – have passed one. That's virtually one out of viii districts. Today, only 108, about ane in 10, take i in result.

The EdSource analysis, by EdSource Senior Inquiry Associate Lisa Chavez and Executive Director Louis Freedberg, provides an upwards-to-date and comprehensive look at this uniquely California instruction tax. Among the findings:

• Packet taxes generate an average of 6 percent of acquirement in districts with them. But in a scattering of districts, they generate a lot more than: $3,404 per student in Berkeley Unified (25 percent of total revenue); $three,881 per student in Piedmont Urban center Unified (31 percent); and $ii,516 per student in Manufacturing plant Valley Simple (24 percent);

• Since 1983, 59 percentage of parcel taxation elections involved requests for under $100; 27 percent requested between $100 and $199; 14 percentage (about 1 in seven) sought more than $200. However, the lower amounts didn't necessarily improve chances of passage: Nearly three-quarters of requests for more $200 passed, reflecting the wealth of the districts involved, while most half of districts asking less than $200 passed;

• Nearly half of parcel taxes now in place are in districts in just 3 prosperous San Francisco Bay Surface area counties: Santa Clara, San Mateo and Marin;

• In more than half of elections, voters were asked to pass parcel taxes lasting four to five years, but six- to 9-year parcel taxes actually stood a ameliorate take a chance of passage;

• In more than than one-half of districts passing a parcel tax, less than a quarter of students were from low-income families; in 16 percent, more than half of students were low-income (Ravenswood Unproblematic in Eastward Palo Alto, Oakland Unified, Berkeley Unified and San Francisco Unified among them). In the 124 districts that accept passed a bundle revenue enhancement, the student population was primarily white and Asian (two-thirds), with one-third Hispanic and African American.

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Source: https://edsource.org/2013/lower-income-districts-would-benefit-from-55-percent-parcel-tax-threshold-study-suggests/31883