Quick Take
Three Santa Cruz County school districts are asking voters to approve bonds and parcel taxes in the upcoming March election. District leaders told Lookout what they plan to use the funds for and why they're important.
As schools across Santa Cruz County, and across California, face rising costs and budget cuts, many are also in need of substantial infrastructure improvements and classroom technology upgrades that aren’t funded through their traditional funding sources, like state and federal allocations.
In March, voters in three county school districts will weigh whether to approve millions in new funding from bond measures and parcel taxes to help their local schools address a mounting backlog of maintenance, upgrades and other investments that district representatives say are badly needed.
At Pacific Elementary School District in Davenport, Superintendent Eric Gross said the school’s main building had eight leaks during last week’s rainfall, with water dripping into classrooms and hallways – a common occurrence when it rains.
“We have buckets in the classrooms and the hallways. We had to close a hallway today because it was flooding,” he said during last week’s rainfall. “Water was coming through the fire alarms.”
Located about 15 minutes north of the city of Santa Cruz, the tiny district runs just one school, which serves 183 students from preschool to sixth grade. Gross is both the principal and superintendent, and the district employs 11 teachers and 23 staff, most of whom work part-time.
Next month, voters in the district will see two different bond measures on their ballots, totaling almost $2 million, to pay to fix the school’s leaky roof, along with other infrastructure projects.
“We can’t just delay this by years because it causes more damage the longer it sits there and becomes a more expensive project,” Gross said. “So we need to do these urgent projects as soon as possible.”
Voters in Live Oak School District will be asked to approve a $44 million bond to help pay for repairs and upgrades to school buildings, exterior features like playgrounds and walkways, and new classroom technology.
The district is facing a budget crisis and recently told Lookout it will have to implement layoffs and other cost-saving measures in order to meet its financial obligations in the upcoming fiscal year. However, the district’s bond measure, if approved, would go only toward infrastructure projects and wouldn’t have a significant impact on its operating budget.
Meanwhile, Happy Valley Elementary School District has a parcel tax up for voters’ approval.
While bond measures need at least 55% of voters’ approval, parcel taxes need at least 66% of votes to pass.
No one filed arguments against the districts’ measures.
Pacific Elementary School District: Measure I ($1.3 million bond) & Measure J ($675,000 bond)
Measures I and J will both be used for repairing leaky roofs, modernizing classrooms, restrooms and other school facilities and for replacing portables with permanent classrooms.
Gross told Lookout that district leaders went for two bonds because they wanted to increase their chances of passing at least one bond to guarantee they’ll get at least some money. Also, Gross said they would need to reach a higher threshold of approval if the bond amounts were higher.
“The voters could decide to only pass one of the two, and passing one is better than passing none,” said Gross. “So it was a way of not putting all of our eggs in one basket.”
The campus has a preschool building and one main building that houses the main office, the teacher workroom, a resource specialist room, four classrooms, kitchen, library and computer lab. Gross said the district needs to demolish and rebuild the preschool and re-roof the main building as well as renovate the main building’s restrooms.
Gross said he hopes the district can first re-roof the main building, which could cost about $1.3 million. Demolishing and rebuilding the preschool will cost between $1 to $2 million, depending on which amenities the districts decides to keep or eliminate from its construction plans.
Gross said the district went out for bids in two separate occasions on all the projects and twice received only one bid from the same bidder, and for the same estimated $3.2 million – above the total bond amounts. He said the district would likely need to take out loans to cover the remaining costs.
“Even if the bonds do pass, we may still need to go to the bank,” said Gross. “We have also been saving some money for the last few years with the knowledge that we were going to have big construction expenses.”
Gross said the district has set aside about $100,000 in its general fund to help fund the construction costs.
Measure I would be levied at about $30 per $100,000 of assessed property value per year, while Measure J would be levied at about $18 per $100,000. About 416 registered voters live within the district’s boundaries.
Live Oak School District: Measure H ($44 million bond)
While most schools across the county are facing looming financial impacts of rising costs and declining enrollment, Live Oak School District has become the first to see the fallout bubble surface.
The district serves about 1,675 students and employs about 280 teachers and staff. It runs three elementary schools, a middle school, an independent charter school and an alternative school.
The Santa Cruz County Office of Education told the district’s governing board last month that the district doesn’t have enough cash to meet its financial obligations in the upcoming fiscal year unless it makes difficult decisions. The governing board is finalizing a stabilization plan it has to approve at an upcoming board meeting prior to its deadline of March 15 – the last day it can implement layoffs.
Layoffs won’t solve the district’s other financial challenge: the mounting cost of updating and maintaining its schools’ aging buildings and facilities. The district previously said a facilities needs assessment showed it had about $137 million worth of needed improvements.
Voters will see a much smaller, but still sizable, bond amount of $44 million on the ballot with Measure H.
Governing board president Kristin Pfotenhauer said the district hasn’t figured out how it will prioritize its extensive list of potential projects and said it will take some time to narrow them down. For example, how do officials decide if a school should get a new playground?
“I do believe kids are really important. I do believe that the environment they have, the ability that they have to move around and be active is important,” she said. “I do believe that if you really value something you should put money in that.”
In addition to renovating a school playground, she said other projects include replacing the roof and reconfiguring the parking lot at Live Oak Elementary School. Another school needs its HVAC system upgraded. Those costs range from $300,000 to about $470,000.
Some of its priciest projects include potentially building a $10 million multipurpose facility at Green Acres Elementary School. The building would house the elementary school’s cafeteria, kitchen, storage, gymnasium and restrooms.
Additionally, if the district decides to build new classrooms to replace portables, it could cost about $10 to $11 million.
“We will have to make decisions because we won’t bring in enough money to make all of those [improvements],” Pfotenhauer said. “Because we’re in declining enrollment we might decide we can eliminate the portables and house students in the other classrooms – those types of decisions can be made.”
Given the district’s ongoing budget woes and the prospect of layoffs, Pfotenhauer said she’s optimistic voters will approve the bond.
“We sometimes have a lot of lip service about how important kids are to our future, but we don’t finance that very well. And that’s not true in Santa Cruz County,” said. “We have a history of people supporting parcel taxes, and our bonds, and our survey of the community indicated people are willing to support that.”
The district said the highest tax rate would be levied at about $30 per $100,000 of assessed property value per year and would be collected from fiscal years 2024-25 through 2056-57.
A total of 14,808 registered voters live within the district’s boundaries.
Happy Valley Elementary School District: Measure G ($488,000 parcel tax)
The district has just one school, located at 3125 Branciforte Dr. It serves 121 students and employs 25 staff, including five full-time teachers, two who teach part-time, and a range of other part-time specialists and classroom assistants. Michelle Stewart serves as the principal and superintendent.
Happy Valley Elementary School District is seeking a parcel tax, not a bond. If passed, the tax would be a continuation of Measure Q, a parcel tax voters first approved in 2018, which expires at the end of June. If voters approve Measure G, that will extend the 2018 parcel tax for another eight years.
Unlike with bond measures that need at least 55% of voters’ approval to pass, with a parcel tax, at least 66% of voters must approve this measure, and property owners all pay the same rate – which in this case is $99 a year.
The new parcel tax would expire June 30, 2032, and the district estimates it would raise $61,000 annually for a total of about $488,000. A total of 1,264 registered voters reside within the Happy Valley district’s boundary.
Stewart said the funds will be used to support the school’s art and music programs, upgrade classroom technology and retain teachers and staff. Also unlike bonds, parcel taxes can be used to pay for salaries.
“This will continue to improve our instructional opportunities for our students and that includes technology and someone to support the technology,” she said. “Someone that can help us when our internet goes down, and someone that can help us if someone’s computer breaks.”
Stewart said the projects and supplies that the parcel tax funds change from year to year depending on the need. For example, several years ago, the district used the funds to replace aging Chromebooks for students. Funds also go toward professional development and music and art supplies.
The district will continue to grant the same exemptions it granted under the 2018 parcel tax to the new tax if it’s passed. Homeowners age 65 years or older who live in the property as their primary residence are exempt from paying the tax and don’t need to reapply for the exemption.
The district’s parcel tax oversight committee found the district used its Measure Q parcel tax funds appropriately and in a September 2023 report recognized “the significant and positive contribution the parcel tax proceeds have had.”
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