Hermosa Beach schools won’t ask voters for money
Patti Ackerman
Dejected Hermosa school trustees will not ask voters for more money – at least not yet – after a survey of the community gave them little hope for a successful parcel tax measure in November.
A consultant’s survey found that 56 percent of likely voters would likely support a $139 annual tax on Hermosa property parcels, which would expire in five years. That support fell significantly below the two-thirds majority required for a parcel tax measure, especially considering that nearly half of the 56 percent described their support as merely probable, not definite.
The mid-April telephone survey, with a 5.7 percent margin of error, asked 300 likely voters about some other parcel tax amounts as well, but could not find two-thirds support, especially after the respondents heard a summary of parcel tax criticisms in the community.
“To say I am disappointed is an understatement,” said city school board President Jack Burns, shortly before he joined in a unanimous vote to kill the potential ballot measure.
He said the parcel tax could resurface for a later ballot, but the school board would “have to do some educating in the community” about the financial straits of the tiny school district, where private fundraising covers as much as 10 percent of the cost of educating 1,300 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
But, he added, the school board might be “just preaching to a brick wall.”
Burns said the century-old school district would survive.
“What I do know, at the end of the day, is we’re going to be okay…we’ll get through this. Will we have the type of district we want? Maybe not,” he said.
But when the larger economy finally bounces back, the district will emerge “leaner and meaner,” in part because of cost-cutting measures such as merging the posts of district superintendent and special education director, to save $138,000 a year. The district had previously eliminated positions including assistant principal.
Parcel tax supporters had said a new tax would help offset state budget cuts and preserve funding for math, science, reading, and writing programs, smaller class sizes and “highly trained, qualified teachers.”
School board members said a campaign supporting a November parcel tax would have cost as much as $60,000, an expense not justified by the poll numbers.
“I hate to say that, because it’s something I really want to see,” Ray Waters said.
“I hear [the consultants] say we’re close, but we’re not there,” Carleen Beste said.
“It’s disappointing,” she said, that “you don’t see the community really rallying behind the issue.”
She said some community critics “make a sport of taking shots at the district.”
“I hate to say it, but for me, going forward would not be the best idea,” Beste said.
“I echo Carleen’s feelings and thoughts about being disappointed in the reaction of the community,” Patti Ackerman said. “Certainly, being a mother of two children in the school system I would hope the community would overwhelmingly support the youth of the community. Not that they don’t, but – ” she said, leaving the sentence hanging.
“But I am comforted by the [support] that is there,” she said, wondering aloud whether a different ballot measure could be put forward that would require a simple majority, instead of two thirds.
“It’s just kind of been a tough afternoon,” she said.
“I’m just really disappointed and kind of deflated,” Lisa Claypoole said. “The numbers, as much as we would like them to be there, they are not there.”
Some 2,000 or 3,000 Hermosans “are directly influenced by the great leadership of our district administration, and the teachers at our schools, and all the staff, the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation and the Hermosa Beach Education Association,” she said.
“But unfortunately we have 17,000 other people who live here who do not know how great [the schools] are,” Claypoole said.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we can get there [by November]. Sixty-seven percent is a long way to go,” she said.
The pollsters found that voters’ overall “positive sentiments” about the school district have declined since similar polling was conducted in 2007, although a plurality of voters continue to believe the local schools are “headed in the right direction.”
The pollsters found that 45 percent of voters think the district is headed in the right direction, compared to 69 percent in 2007, and 22 percent think it is headed in the wrong direction, compared to only 7 percent in 2007.
The rest of the respondents did not have an opinion, or had mixed opinions.
The pollsters summed up community criticism of a tax measure this way:
“Opponents of the school tax measure say that, given the weak economy, this is not the right time to raise taxes. [They say] the school district has the money it needs, if it just cuts wasteful spending and high administrators’ salaries, pensions and benefits,” pollsters found.
“They also say that since the school district did not follow through on all the projects it promised in the last school bond, the district cannot be trusted to spend the money as promised in this measure.”
The last time the Hermosa school district got more money from voters was in 2002, when they approved a bond issue that built classrooms, a library and a controversial gymnasium at the largest campus, Hermosa Valley School, which has second grade through middle school students.
In 2006 voters rejected a second bond measure, and in 2008 a parcel tax failed by 20 percentage points.
Since 2007, state cuts have caused shortfalls of $1.7 million at the Hermosa district, which has a $10 million operating budget.
In addition, Burns has said $230,000 in federal stimulus money will run out this year, and the Hermosa district could lose another $374,000 if California voters reject a multibillion-dollar tax measure backed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The school district has axed or reduced an instructional aide at the kindergarten-through-second-grade Hermosa View School, an assistant principal, music for grades one through five, middle school academic counseling, aides for middle school technology and fourth- and fifth-grade science, a maintenance and operations coordinator, an operations worker, hours for a library/media technician at Valley School, health aides at both schools, and two clerical workers.
For the current school year, private community fundraisers saved a third-through-fifth-grade science lab, first-through-fifth-grade physical education, a program to limit class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, the middle school electives of art, technology, computers, Spanish, music, speech and drama, and a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade reading specialist.