#school-bond-and-taxes

#school-bond-and-taxes

The FPPC wants to know if county government funds were used on Measure A campaign mailers, following complaints from the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association and Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County.

The protracted talks means that families of 390,000 students still must scramble to make contingency plans for their children Tuesday - and some 70,000 workers, including teachers and school principals, don't know if they will be at work or on a picket line.

The so-called pork-barrel grants are not awarded on a competitive or transparent basis, and most get disbursed outside the normal budget process, meaning state lawmakers never vote on the individual recipients.

The new contract covers July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028, and was ratified by 99% of voting union members on March 23. The agreement includes a 3% retroactive raise for this school year, a 4% increase for next school year, and a one-time bonus of $600 to $1,000.

Michelle Medintz spent at least $5,000 in 2022 alone, largely on books. She created a 'cozy corner' in her classroom with shelves filled with books, cushions on the floor, and stuffed animals. 'That doesn't make me a better teacher than my colleagues,' Medintz said.

The last three months have been tumultuous in the district. The community was divided by a surprise move in January to add ethnic studies to the high school curriculum, a class that Chinese and Jewish families felt was discriminatory. When new board member Rowena Chiu said publicly she felt bullied by other "woke" school board members for questioning the class, all hell broke loose.

Through Community Facilities Districts (CFD), Municipal Utility Districts (MUD), Public Improvement Districts (PID), Community Development Districts (CDD) and reimbursement districts (RD), builders can potentially shift infrastructure costs off their balance sheets and onto special districts that homebuyers ultimately absorb through property taxes without potentially adding debt to the builder's books.

Over the past few weeks leading up to the teachers strike, Superintendent Maria Su repeatedly told the press and labor negotiators that dipping into the district's over $400 million reserves was, simply, "not an option." But projected spending shows that the district will significantly spend its reserves to pay for its labor agreements, potentially depleting its "restricted funding" by 2028.

What makes the program tricky is that it blurs the party lines on school choice. It's not a traditional voucher. But opposition to any school choice policy is deeply ingrained for many Democrats. If governors opt in to the program, tax dollars will go toward private school tuition for children in their states, something many Democrats are uncomfortable with.

The Palo Alto Unified School District is in the middle of at least 11 different lawsuits, including cases that allege unchecked bullying, racist attacks, injured students, inadequate special education and retaliation by district leadership.

The Portland Housing Bureau has found additional unspent dollars in its coffers, adding to the previous $21 million it found through an audit last year. It is unclear exactly how much money is in the fund, but Council President Jamie Dunphy called councilors over the weekend to tell them they would soon learn of the specifics of what was found in the Housing Investment Fund. He told the Mercury February 2 that he did not yet know how much total funding was available.

"If we don't get what we need [in terms of extra government help] then a Section 114 Notice will come in, which is effective bankruptcy. We'd then get administrators come in, in effect - they'd then make a plan for where the money gets spent in Worcestershire. It would be a catastrophe. We're going to have to halt projects that were put into the budget by the previous administration, things that maybe were 'nice to have', but we can't afford them."

This is the worst crisis OUSD has ever faced. Period. We don't even know what's possible yet. We never did the work to see what are our options. These are big questions. And I don't have any of the answers. And I have issue with that.

Three Tri-Valley school districts are facing significant financial dilemmas heading into next year, with budget cuts and potential layoffs threatening to hit classrooms. Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore schools are all grappling with multi-million dollar budget deficits in the 2026-27 school year, with the districts citing declining enrollment and decreased state and federal funding as having created budget holes that will likely lead to difficult decisions.