Here We Go Again: School District Looking to Re-introduce Parcel Tax Measures.
Santa Barbara – Here we go again. School is out for the summer, but the Santa Barbara Unified School District has a lot of homework to do. Despite the failure of Measures W and X during the June 5th primary election, school officials refuse to give up. They plan to go back, crunch the numbers and start all over again.According to the school district, the margin of defeat was just about 100 votes in the elementary district and 750 in the secondary district.”It was not a resounding defeat by any stretch of the imagination,” said Dr. David Cash, Superintendent of the Santa Barbara Unified School District.In fact, a majority of people voted in favor of the parcel tax measures, but they required a two-thirds majority to be approved. So now, it is back to the drawing board.”Definitely a majority of the board feels like the best thing to do is move forward and put it back on the ballot,” said Kate Parker, Santa Barbara Unified School District Board Member.So what’s really at stake if Measures W and X are not revived and ultimately passed?”Art classes, science and tech, we would be losing music classes, and foreign language classes,” said Parker.But just getting the measures back on the ballot does not mean voters will be lining up to support them after already falling in defeat. First, the district is looking at reducing the amount per parcel. Measures W and X called for a $54 parcel tax annually. Second, November is already very busy. It’s a presidential election, there will be congressional and senate races and of course, Governor Jerry Brown has his own tax initiative that has a direct impact on schools.”We knew the November election was already going to end up with a really crowded ballot,” said Parker.A decision needs to be made very quickly. The deadline for the Santa Barbara County Elections Office is June 28th. The next meeting for school board officials is June 26th and it is already looking like a special workshop will be held sometime next week to iron out the language of the measures.KEY News Reporter Scott Hurst has the story.
