California voters supported public schools on Nov. 6
Published: December 5, 2012
Echoing a statewide trend that saw Californians willing to tax themselves to support public schools by voting yes on Proposition 30 in the Nov. 6 election, voters in local educational agencies throughout the state approved 100 parcel tax and bond measures to pay for public school facilities and services to the state’s K-14 students.
According to Michael Coleman, a fiscal expert who analyzes election results for the League of California Cities, voters reached the required—and difficult—two-thirds approval threshold to pass 15 of the 25 parcel tax measures on the ballot. Voters also approved 85 of the 106 school construction bonds on the ballot, which need only 55 percent of the votes to pass. The pass rates for local parcel tax and school bond measures, 60 percent and 80 percent respectively, are in line with recent electoral trends as was the volume of ballot measures, Coleman said.
Prop. 30, other election results
Education leaders, including those from CSBA, celebrated the passage of Proposition 30, the statewide tax increase proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown to stave off drastic cuts in state funding to K-14 education. CSBA endorsed the measure and association President Jill Wynns toured the state with Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson to build public awareness of the need to pass it to benefit schools.
Dennis Meyers, CSBA’s assistant executive director for Governmental Relations, said it’s also worth noting that voters elected a Democratic “supermajority” in both houses of the state Legislature, giving them two-thirds of the seats in the state Senate and Assembly.
Among other things, Democrats might be in a position to place before voters a constitutional amendment to lower the two-thirds threshold for approving parcel taxes. In seven of the 10 districts where parcel taxes failed last month, a 55 percent approval threshold would have turned those losses into wins. CSBA is working to identify a legislator who will introduce a constitutional amendment in the 2013 legislative year to lower the parcel tax vote requirement to match the 55 percent bond threshold.