Culver City Home Owners Face Huge Increase In Taxes - Schools Bond Measure on Ballot for June

If you are a property owner in Culver City you should read this. The Culver City Unified School District Board is placing a Bond Measure on the ballot in June that will increase property taxes for the next 25 years.

If passed, this measure will add a total of $217 million to the cost of owning a home over the next 25 years.

Academically our schools are performing admirably and many of them have significantly improved their API scores over the last few years. The school board argues however, that the facilities have been neglected and have reached the stage where significant investment needs to be made to make them serviceable and safe for the next 25 years.

As a local real estate agent, parent and proud resident of Culver City, I can tell you from first hand experience, one of the key reasons that buyers want to purchase a home here, is the schools and the results they are achieving. I think most home owners understand this. Along with some other key factors, home values in Culver City have increased exponentially over the last 13 years or so (more than doubled) and seem to be climbing higher at the time of writing.

So everyone who has a stakeholder interest in our school facilities being able to continue to provide an environment for the pupils to thrive in should weigh in with their vote.

Here's how you could be affected.

As the amount of the bond measure you will be responsible for is gong to be based on your properties assessed value, when you bought your house is going to determine how much you will pay. The actual cost will be calculated by an amount per every $100,000 of your assessed value. As that amount is yet to be determined, let's just use one of the three amounts that were discussed at a recent school board meeting. They were; $40.00, $50.00 or $60.00 per every $100,000 of assessed value. Let's look at 3 different scenarios

A home purchased in 2013 for $999.000 - The annual additional cost at $40.00 per $100,000 will be $396.00

A home purchased in 2003 - whose current assessed value is $565,000 - The annual additional cost at $40.00 per $100,000 will be $226.00

A home purchased in 1996 - whose current assessed value is $450,000 - The annual additional cost at $40.00 per $100,000 will be $180.00

Bare in mind the market value for these homes is going to be approximately the same and yet, the purchaser in 2013 is going to pay 75% more than the home owner who purchased in 2003 and 120% more than the home owner who purchased in 1996.

As you can see these are significant amounts in addition to all the other taxes you see on your bill. Traditionally a very small number of voters show up and vote at School Board Elections. Out of approximately 20,000 voters, around 4,000 get to the polls to cast a ballot for their preferred board member or candidate.

I encourage every stakeholder to show up and contribute to the decision to spend $217 Million and pay for it over the next 25 years. Please share this with anyone you know who could benefit from this information.