Political, business and education leaders are laying the groundwork for a statewide ballot measure that would make it easier for school districts to raise money by increasing local property taxes.
The Silicon Valley-based Taxpayers for School Improvement is building support for an initiative that would reduce the percentage of voters needed to approve local parcel taxes -- from two-thirds, or 66.6%, to 55%. The group's goal is to place the initiative on the 2006 state ballot.
The lower vote requirement would apply to school districts, community college districts and county offices of education, organizers said.
Property owners would face small increases on their annual tax bills in communities where school agencies successfully won voter approval for parcel taxes.
The money could be used to hire more teachers, buy more books or for other purposes determined by school systems, according to group leaders.
Advocates say the additional income would give cash-strapped school districts greater flexibility and control over expenses as they grappled with austere budgets.
"It's pretty clear that tough times are going to continue in school funding. In tough times, a relatively modest amount of money can have an impact on what goes on in classrooms," said state Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), one of the campaign's chairmen, who pushed a similar measure unsuccessfully last year in the Assembly.
Simitian is spearheading the ballot drive with two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs: Democrat Reed Hastings, a member of the state Board of Education and the founder of Netflix, an Internet video rental service; and Republican Steve Poizner, a board member of the California Charter Schools Assn. and the founder of SnapTrack, a company that uses satellite technology to locate cellphone and pager users.
Anti-tax groups vowed to defeat the proposed ballot measure, which would amend a section of the state Constitution that requires schools to obtain a two-thirds vote to impose special taxes.
The critics say parcel taxes, which generally assess property equally regardless of size for a set number of years, unfairly punish lower-income homeowners.
"This is a tax-the-poor-and-middle-class [plan] to satisfy some ambiguous social good perceived by certain elites," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. "We will run a very aggressive campaign against it if they proceed."
