Manhattan Beach Education Foundation hosts annual fundraiser

Manhattan Beach elementary students enjoy hands-on learning through the MakerSpace program funded by MBEF. Photo courtesy MBEF

Manhattan Beach elementary students enjoy hands-on learning through the MakerSpace program funded by MBEF. Photo courtesy MBEF

Saturday night will be a night of celebration at the annual Wine Auction at the Manhattan Beach Country Club.

Hundreds of supporters of local schools will gather at the event, which features more than 40 local restaurants, 70 vintners, breweries, and distilleries, and over 300 volunteers all working together to provide, in a single night, an estimated 15 percent of the $6 million the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation will contribute to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District programs this year. Fine wine will be enjoyed, hundreds of items auctioned, and live music will ring out as the country club is transformed into one of the signature community fundraising galas of the year.

The results of the night’s festivities are particularly crucial for the success of local schools in coming years. MBUSD schools find themselves in dire financial straits, even as the economy thrives and statewide educational spending increases, due to combination of factors that are both historical and very current.

The money raised by MBEF funds many essential programs — from class size reduction to STEM education to music instruction — that could all be endangered if left to state funding alone. MBEF last year accounted for nine percent of all district funding. As MBUSD Superintendent Michael Matthews notes, without this funding, the school district would be greatly diminished in what it is able to offer its 6,865 students.

“The Manhattan Beach Education Foundation is an invaluable resource for MBUSD,” Matthews said. “The way the California funds schools, Manhattan Beach Unified is the 6th lowest funded district in the state. Without our partnership with MBEF, we would not be the district we are today. They provide the funding for so many of our outstanding teachers. They provide the funding for so many of our outstanding programs, like music, physical education, STEM, libraries, counseling and more.”

The roots of the district’s funding challenges go back to Prop. 13, the property tax reform enacted in 1978 that both limited tax increases and also took local control — and proceeds — of property tax revenue away from school districts. The idea was to create greater equality in school funding throughout all districts; among the results statewide was a reduction in per-pupil funding. In 1965, California was the top ranked state in education funding; by 1985, that had dropped to 14th, and by last year, the state ranked 41st in per pupil funding at $10,291, according to the California Budget and Policy Center.

MBUSD was a K-8 district at the time Prop. 13 passed, and as it was designated a “Revenue Limit” district, its property tax contribution was frozen at that level — despite the fact that it added Mira Costa High School in the early 1990s when the South Bay High School District folded.

“At the time [the school district] was K-8 and it was more of a blue collar community that wasn’t placing on education as much of a priority,” said Farnaz Flechner, MBEF executive director. “So only 20 percent of property taxes went to education at that time, and it got fixed at that level. And you can’t change that allocation, so we are a Revenue Limit district. Basic Aid districts like Palo Alto and Beverly Hills, they retain their property taxes, because they’ve always been K-12.”

This is part of the reason MBUSD’s per pupil funding — $10,920 in 2015-16 — is less than half the over $20,000 averages in states such as New York, Wyoming, and Alaska (Vermont leads at $27,962) and far below districts such as Palo Alto, a K-12 district which maintained 80 percent of its property tax revenue and thus funds $17,941 per student. It’s also due to the fact that many school districts — including Palo Alto, Santa Monica-Malibu ($15 million annually), and Palos Verdes ($7.5 million annually) — enacted parcel taxes to shore up local education funding. Manhattan Beach attempted to do with a ballot measure that failed in 2003.

Even the state’s recent attempt to better fund schools, the Local Control Funding Formula implemented in 2013, has done little to address MBUSD’s challenges because it focuses on socioeconomically disadvantaged school districts.

“As far as our legislators are concerned at this moment, they feel like they’ve really addressed state funding for education in California through Local Control Formula Funding,” Flechner said. “I spent most of my career working for low income communities so I have nothing against it, but the reality of it is that districts like ours, that don’t have English language learners and free and reduced lunch kids, end up getting the least amount of funding per pupil. Manhattan Beach is at the very bottom of the whole state in terms of receiving Local Control Formula Funding.”

“As educators, we support idea of a funding formulas that provides equality for students, that provides more resources to students who have greater needs,” said MBUSD Deputy Superintendent Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard. “But the bottom line is there are challenges under LCFF. It’s just not adequate. I think the public perception, as the economy recovered, is education has gotten new funding, which is true, but that is new funding which only brings [MBUSD] to 2008 levels — which does not compensate for costs rising since 2008.”

And it’s about to get worse. The district received $11.4 million in funding for the implementation of new Common Core curriculum standards over the last three years; the funding ceases this year, while the implementation does not, so MBEF will provide grants towards this end.

More troubling is the impending impact of pension costs. The state has shifted more of the cost of pensions to employees and the district; the district’s contribution of 11.7 percent toward CALPERS funding in 2014-15 will increase to 21.6 percent by 2020 and over 28 percent by 2028.

“The challenge is the rate at which pensions are increasing, and the cost of living is increasing,” Flechner said. “The revenue is not growing at the rate the expenses are.”

In total, last year MBEF provided $5.8 million to local schools in the form of 33 grants. It also funded the positions of 70 educators. This year’s priorities include MakerSpace, which implements STEM education in a very hands-on manner, and social inclusion grants. The priorities, Flechner stressed, derive from the Board of Directors and school site representatives.

“It’s not just a block grant that says to the district go ahead and spend it as you wish,” she said. “This is a clear and direct response to our parent, student, teacher priorities about what we want in our education system. So the reason why these grants are so detailed and structured is we want to ensure the program that we are funding is responsive to our community’s priorities.”

The old adage that it takes a village to raise a child, Flechner said, comes fully to life as the MBEF board and its 300 plus volunteers and thousands of local parents come together Saturday night. The Wine Auction this year is particularly focused on MBEF Endowment, which was started 31 years ago and intends to reach the $20 million mark by 2020.

“Then it will disperse a million dollars a year regardless of economic downturns or how effective we are in our fundraising campaigns,” Flechner said. “It ensures our priorities are going to continue to be met regardless of fiscal uncertainty.”

Over 70 percent of all MBEF funds are contributed by local parents.

“It’s our parent community,” Flechner said. “They understand this and recognize our schools are strong because of this.”

The Manhattan Beach Wine Auction takes place June 3 from 4:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Manhattan Beach Country Club (1330 Parkview Ave.). For more information, see ManhattanWineAuction.com or MBEF.org.

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