Searching for Revenue – Parcel Taxes

The Lowell Joint School District’s recent budget troubles are well documented and without additional revenue to replace the recent cuts imposed by the state, there are some tough choices coming.

One option that has been pursued in the past and should be considered again is a parcel tax.

What is a Parcel Tax?

“Parcel Tax” is the common term for a school district “qualified special tax”. Cities, counties and other districts can also adopt special taxes. Special taxes are permitted by the California constitution, and require approval at an election by at least 2/3 of those voting on the measure. However, there have been recent proposals that would allow California voters to amend the constitution to reduce the required vote to 55% for school district parcel taxes, the same for school bonds.

Have any districts approved Parcel Taxes?

There are 14 parcel tax initiatives on the ballot in California for the November election. There were 32 parcel tax initiatives on the May/June ballot, with 24 receiving the required 2/3 supermajority needed for approval. You can see more information on recent parcel tax proposals here.

The Lowell Joint School District proposed a $95 parcel tax for eight years in 2005 but it failed to reach the required 2/3 supermajority with 53% of the vote. The tax would have generated $900,000 in additional revenue for the district. If that proposal had passed we might not be in such a difficult situation today. You can read a story about the election here.

Recently the Little Lake School District in Santa Fe Springs decided not to place a parcel tax proposal on the November ballot. A recent poll conducted by the district showed support ranging from 58% to 63%. You can read the details here:

Is a Parcel Tax the Best Option?

I think it is safe to say that no one likes to see their taxes raised and in these tough economic times it would be hard to get a parcel tax approved but what are the other options? You can only cut so much before you begin to damage the very thing you are trying to support – the children.

Parcel taxes have been approved in other districts across the state and a well written proposal with a short timeframe and support from the teachers could reach the 2/3 supermajority required for approval. As I have said before in posts on this site, we need to think of new ideas and a parcel tax is something that should be considered.

Know Your Candidates for the School Board

We are six weeks from election day and I think it's about time everyone became familiar with the eight candidates running for the Lowell Joint School Board.

You will have many opportunities to learn about each candidate's positions and we'll provide several options for you to choose from. We will also add the links to front page of the site (right below my picture).

Today's link is to SmartVoter.org which is a site provided by the League of Women's Voters. Enter in your address and the site will provide links to candidate information for your ballot.

This is a great way to learn more about the people that will be making decisions that impact the district for the next four years.

Remember, you get to choose three representatives this year.

Choose wisely!

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times recently that Meg Whitman has now set a record by contributing $119 million to her campaign for governor. You can read about it here.

My first thought, couldn’t she have found something better to do with all that money?

I bring it up because of a recent conversation that I had regarding the upcoming school board election. I was speaking with someone and they commented on how expensive it must be to run. They had heard that it would cost around $5,000 to run for a position on the board. Imagine their surprise when I told them that it actually costs nothing.

You can spend a lot of money, but you don’t have to. All candidates have the opportunity to provide a statement that is included in the voter guide that is sent to all voters. The final cost depends on the number of candidates that choose to participate but for the Lowell Joint School Board election the original estimate was over $1,000. I decided not to participate as I felt that the cost was too high and there were other options available to make my positions available to the voters.

It didn’t stop there. Within days of filing I began to receive calls, emails and letters from a variety of people offering their services. It was touching that so many people wanted to help…………for a price. I could easily spend a few thousand dollars on voter slate mailings, robocalls, campaign signs and even my own personal campaign manager. They all said the same thing you need to get name recognition if you want to win.

What I decided to do instead was start my own website. I went to GoDaddy.com and Blogspot.com and set up the site you are on today for less than $20. I also started a Facebook page for free. I have spent a little bit of money advertising on Facebook (more out of curiosity than anything). I ordered some postcards from VistaPrint.com (they have great deals and some products are free!).

One option I have been considering recently is signs. As you get closer to election day you see them everywhere. I have seen a few already pop up on my drive to work. I’ve done some research and they can be pretty expensive. Sure, some websites offer 100 signs for $100, but if you want something that is big enough to read, has multiple colors, will last for more than a week and want a stand to place it on you are looking at $250 and up.

Then, you need to decide where you are going to put your signs. That’s easy enough, ask your friends to put them in their yards, target areas near the schools and busy intersections. I was surprised to find that even though you see many signs on telephone and utility poles, most cities ban the practice. Many areas also limit the time you can display signs and require that they are removed immediately after the election (with penalties if you don’t).

All in all, it can be pretty intimidating to set up and honestly do you even remember the signs you see every day? I haven’t even mentioned the impact to the environment. Do we really need to see a bunch of signs on every available square foot of real estate for the next 60 days? Then they all go in the trash after the election, kind of a waste don’t you think?

That brings me back to Meg Whitman. Rather than spend money on campaign signs isn’t there something better I can do with that money?

So here is my pledge and my invitation to the other candidates. I am going to donate the $250 I was considering spending on campaign signs to the Lowell Joint Education Foundation. As an added bonus, Bank of America matches employee donations so that will double the amount to $500. I think that is a better use of the money.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be campaigning. You will still have the option to put up a sign to support my candidacy. You can click here to download a sign to display in your window at home or maybe in your car. Not quite up the standards of what you order online, but much more cost effective.

There will be information on all the candidates available in the local media. This week’s LaHabra Journal has a great article on all of the candidates and the OC Register is planning to publish an online voter guide. I have heard that the Whittier Daily News will provide the candidates the opportunity to share their positions prior to the election. You can also read about all the candidates on SmartVoter.org. Voters will have the opportunity to read about all the candidates and make an informed decision even if they never see a sign.

I’ll post my thoughts on this website regularly, maybe walk a few neighborhoods, make a few calls, advertise a little on Facebook and attend the school board meetings. Hopefully the word will get out. At the end of the day any of the eight candidates running for the board would do a good job. Feel free to vote for any two candidates that you like ----- just save one vote for me!

September's School Board Meeting

The plan this week was to continue on the topic of teacher evaluations but I was sidetracked first by a business trip out of town and then the school board meeting on Monday night. There were some interesting developments at the meeting so we’ll have to pick up where we left off on the subject of “Grading the Teachers” at a later time.

If I have learned anything over the past few months it is that the Lowell Joint School Board meetings are the equivalent of “Must See TV” and Monday’s meeting was no exception. The first clue that something was coming was when the meeting was moved from the district office to Meadow Green. I assume this was to accommodate the large number of people that have tried to attend meetings in the district’s small conference room recently.

(On a side note, I have to say that the Meadow Green campus is beautiful! The auditorium is roomy and well kept up and they have a stage! There was even green grass that was actually being watered! As a Jordan parent I can’t tell you the last time I drove by the school and saw it being watered. Our grass is a perpetual state of brown. But I digress……)

You know that you are in store for something interesting when the first thing you see upon arriving at the school is a picket line of teachers on the sidewalk, dressed in black. The meeting itself contained a lot of very useful information including a summary of the 2009/2010 district accomplishments, a budget review, the 2010 API results among other items on the agenda. You can view the details on the district’s website by clicking here.

There was a little more give and take between members of the audience and the board tonight. Usually there is no interaction and the members of the audience have to wait until the public comments time in the agenda to speak out. It was actually nice to see some discussion for a change (even though is was difficult to hear the board members as there was only one microphone).

As usual the fireworks really start when we get to the public comments. It was nice to hear a Macy parent provide some positive feedback to the board for addressing an issue around class size, but that was it for the positive notes.

The next few speakers lashed out at the board for a number of reasons with the final speaker of the night providing a update on the recent negotiations with the teachers that was punctuated by a mass walk-out of all the teachers that were present at the meeting.

I would like to say that there was an improvement in the tone of the meeting compared the recent meetings I attended in June, but there hasn't been much progress on that front. There is still an air of distrust between the board and the teachers that is as one of of the board members noted "the elephant in the room".

There were only about 15 people remaining after the teachers left (with five of those being candidates for the board in the upcoming election). With all that is going on in the district I would like to think that we would have a better turnout from the parents.....maybe they didn't know about the meeting?

There were a few more observations that I would like to make but this post is getting long so they will have to wait until next time.

Grading the Teachers: Value Added Analysis

The Los Angeles Times has produced a controversial series of articles called “Grading the Teachers” in the past few weeks. Here is a brief summary from the Times on their position.

“The Los Angeles Times has produced an analysis of how effective Los Angeles Unified School District teachers have been at improving their students' performance on standardized tests. The Times has decided to make the ratings available because they bear on the performance of public employees who provide an important service, and in the belief that parents and the public have a right to the information.”

What is value-added analysis?

Value-added estimates the effectiveness of a teacher by looking at the test scores of their students. Each student's past test performance is used to project their performance in the future. The difference between the child's actual and projected results is the estimated "value" that the teacher added or subtracted during the year. The teacher's rating reflects his average results after teaching a statistically reliable number of students.

There is a dedicated area on their website with all of the information published in the last few weeks. You can access it by clicking here.

There is a tremendous amount of information on the website and it is going to take a few posts to get through all of it, so let’s start with a few basics.

• In our society, everyone has their performance evaluated. No matter what it is, we want to measure it. From politics to sports to entertainment and even religion we want to know who wins, who loses, who is successful and who isn’t.
• There is nothing wrong with evaluating performance. Most people would agree, as long as they know what is expected of them and that they would be evaluated objectively, they are ok with it.
• Many times people disagree on what should be measured, how and by whom. Some things can be non-negotiable (for example, airline pilots have to have a 100% success rate in landing their planes safely). Getting people to agree involves compromises when it comes to controversial items and even then you may not always get exactly what you want.
• People have different definitions of what it means to be “successful”. Many people live in a “pass/fail” world and they are only interested in knowing if they cleared the bar. Degrees of success don’t really matter to them. Others desperately what to know exactly where they stand compared to their competition. They are not satisfied knowing that they cleared the bar, they want to know by how much, and how does that rank compared to others.
• Performance evaluations are generally considered confidential. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, discussions on performance are held between an employee and their direct supervisor.
• At the end of the day, everyone wants to successful in whatever it is that they do.

So, those are the basics (according to me anyway) we’ll get into some more details later……

OC Register Article

I came across a very interesting article in the OC Register the other day. Lots of information on how OC districts are dealing with the budget crisis. Click here to view.

Leadership and Choices

Choices

There’s a great scene in the movie Dave that talks to the ideas of leadership and choices. In case you don’t remember the movie, Kevin Kline plays Dave Kovic, a look-a-like for the President who takes over when the current President has a stroke during an extramarital affair. As the “new” President, Dave’s common sense approach does not fit in with the Washington establishment. There is more to the plot than that but this isn’t a movie review site so you can see a full plot summary here.

Anyway, sitting in a budget meeting as President, Dave attempts to save a project that the first lady supports (and his Chief of Staff is willing to sacrifice) but meets some resistance from the cabinet. When Dave tries to save the project, the cabinet members reply to his questions with the same old responses that they have used for years. But this time Dave pushes back and you quickly see how hollow the prevailing logic is when challenged. You can see part of the exchange here.

The point of the story is that sometimes you need someone from the outside to come in and bring a new perspective if things are going to change. It’s not that the people that have been there aren’t effective or don’t care anymore. It’s just that after a while you get into a routine and you instinctively return back to the same old things that you have done in the past. The problem is that when the environment around you changes, what worked in the past may not always work again.

I used to work in Pasadena and I had over an hour drive each way to get to the office. Over time I found a route that proved to be effective in getting me there on time and it got to the point that I could make that drive in my sleep.

Once in a while, there was construction or traffic and my established route was not effective anymore. I was faced with a choice, take the same route (and be late for work) or find a new route that bypassed the problem and got me there on time. I was forced to try something new and you know what, sometimes the new route was better than the old one.

The current budget crisis presents the district with a unique challenge. There are different opinions on what caused the problem and the best way to address it. One thing is certain, we can continue to do things the way they have been done in the past or we can set out on a new course and try something different. Change isn’t easy or comfortable but sometimes it is necessary. We need to be open to new ideas. Even though we will have a new Governor in a few months, the problem is not going to go away any time soon.

I don’t have experience working as a member of a school board or as an educator but I have over 20 years experience working for a very large company in wide variety of roles. Like Dave, I’ll probably ask a bunch of questions that seem pretty basic and I may ruffle a few feathers along the way. But at the end of the day, I’ll bring a fresh perspective to the board, and I think that is something that is needed. Change has to start somewhere and I think it’s time to start by adding some a new voice to the board.

I hope you will continue to visit the website and learn more about my experience and vision for the future of the district. I also hope you will use one of your three votes to elect me to a position on the board this November.

More to come…..