Lobby the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13: Part 3 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Many District residents may not be aware that the Lagunitas School District is a fee paying client of a lobbying group in Sacramento known as School for Sound Finance which advocates for the concerns of Basic Aid School Districts of which we are one. If elected I will spearhead a new coalition of school districts to advocate that Governor Brown declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13, which he has the power to do, and file a lawsuit against the Governor if he fails to do so. Since it passed in the 1970s Prop 13 has been the primary cause of our on-going revenue shortfall.

Freeing us the bondage of Prop 13 would allow our District to restore equity to our local property taxes. This would be done by adjusting property tax increases so that they rise proportionally to the value of the property, eg. the more valuable your property the higher your property tax rate. Those with less valuable properties may actually see their property taxes fall. It would also allow the District to recapture lost property taxes from those who have benefited from Prop 13 especially those who owned when it went into effect in 1978. Right now the longer you hold onto your property the lower your actual property tax rate relative to someone who bought the same value property more recently.

The Legislature lacks the political will to touch the holy grail of Prop 13 for fear of losing re-election by becoming the target of fanatical anti-tax groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. It's up to the school board trustees of our state to take down Prop 13 or continue to see our system of public education drown in austerity, layoffs, increasing lass sizes, cutbacks, and privatization which both of my opponents advocate more of in our District.