Measure L facing a daunting hurdle

Two-thirds support needed to pass 9-year levy to fund district

FREMONT >> Voters in Fremont will decide in March whether to approve a proposed parcel tax that would cost them $296 a year for nine years to help the school district pay teachers’ salaries, keep class sizes from growing and increase learning opportunities for students.

Measure L, which will be on the primary ballot March 3, would require two-thirds of voters’ support to pass and would raise about $18.3 million annually for the Fremont Unified School District, officials said.

Officials say the school district, among the lowest funded per student in the county, needs the money as it is dealing with rising costs, including paying teachers higher salaries and wrangling with pension and benefit liability debt. And for the first time in many years, the district is facing declining enrollment and is losing revenue.

Teachers in the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association received a 5% raise between the previous and current school year, plus 3% in one-time bonuses, and the district and union are currently negotiating for the upcoming 2020-21 school year.

Meanwhile, the district’s associate superintendent of business services, Marcus Battle, blamed part of the financial problem on the district receiving bad enrollment projections from its longtime demographer.

By late last summer, the demographer projections overestimated the number of students the district would have enrolled this year by roughly 640 students, at 35,632, when in January the district had 34,991 enrolled, and the projections also are off for the 2020-21 school year, Battle said.

In all, the projection issues account for about $16.5 million of a larger shortfall the district is currently facing for this year and next, Battle said.

As it deals with rising special education costs and less funding from the state and a possible raise for teachers, the board is considering making sweeping cuts of around $26 million later this month to balance the district’s three-year budget.

The cuts could include not filling

87 teaching positions and bumping up class sizes to 30 students for all elementary grades.

The district also could reduce by $3 million the amount it gives to the Mission Valley Regional Occupational Program. The district also made about $12.5million worth of cuts before this school year began to remain solvent, officials said.

“We are one of the last few school districts in the Bay Area to feel declining enrollment. Many other districts have already gone through it,” Battle said. “It’s a wake-up call for the whole community.”

Though the district had rising enrollment for many years and had drastically increased development impact fees to account for thousands of homes going up around the city, the anticipated increase in students has not materialized so far and the district needs money to make up the gap, and expand math and STEAM learning opportunities for students.

“It’s just changing factors. We’ve been a solid district … and now yes, we need

the community’s help to get out of this hole that we’re in,” Battle said.

The new tax would last through 2029 and would be in addition to an existing $73 annual parcel tax, Measure I, that was passed in 2016, for a total of $369 a year.

Property owners in Fremont also already pay a tax to help retire the district’s bond measures — such as the $650 million Measure E from 2014 — which in all add $76 of tax per $100,000 of assessed value, or about $503 for an average home assessed at $665,787.

If Measure L passes, the average Fremont homeowner will pay about $872 annually in supplemental school taxes next year, according to tax figures provided by the school district.

Marcus Crawley, the head of the Alameda County Taxpayers Association, said the district should be specific with voters about where the money will go, as the law requires, instead of making vague statements in the language voters see on their ballots, such as the measure can be used to “attract and retain highly qualified teachers.”

“In general, I think that teachers should be wellpaid, so I don’t object to this being used for teacher salaries, but they should state it nice and clear,” Crawley said.

Crawley also takes issue with the district asserting the money “cannot be taken away by the state” on its website and pamphlets.

“Well, the state has never threatened to take it and has no authority to take it anyway. So, in lieu of a good argument, it just comes out as a sort of tribalism, and ‘Let’s all stick together and resist the big, bad state,’” Crawley said.

“I think voters need to wake up and demand accountability,” he said.

Ann Crosbie, a longtime school board member and the co-chair of the Yes on Measure L campaign, said the district needs to pay its teachers well and provide them better resources to ensure quality education that Fremont schools are known for.

“People have moved here because of the schools, it’s the diamond in Fremont, where we have excellent education. Our kids go to Harvard, they go to Stanford, they go to Berkeley, and if we’re going to maintain that, then we need this assistance at this time,” Crosbie said.