Measure K Puts District First, Kids Second

On the few lawn signs I’ve seen around the community supporting the passage of the School Board’s Measure K, there is displayed a sentimental slogan: “It’s for Our Kids.”

The slogan is meant to invoke a heart-felt sentimentality that the community should pass the measure, because, don’t we love our kids and grandkids and want them to be successful in school and later in life? Isn’t it worth investing 50-cents a day for them to be successful?

But, do not be fooled by this heart-tugging sentiment. Because NOTHING could be fiscally farther from the truth.

Most of funds raised, if not all, will be used on behalf of the adult staff in the district--to support their past compensation increases of almost 50 percent and to continue to pay for the district’s increasing STRS/PERS pension contributions.

District staff’s cost of employment is now gobbling almost 90 percent of the district’s revenues and its annual pension-payment increases still have a few more years to go.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone-especially Board members—because the governor clearly laid out these planned increases years ago.

Deficit Spiraling Out of Control

In the 2016-’17 school year the Board’s spending deficit was more than $4.8 million--almost seven percent of its revenue.

In the just-released report, closing out last year’s school budget, it showed that the Board had spent over $7 million more than it received in revenue. That’s the largest deficit ever recorded in our district’s history--almost 10 percent of all district revenues received.

Astonishingly, board members have deficit spent more in the past two fiscal years—nearly $12 million--than in the previous five years combined.

So, the budgetary balance is not getting any better. It is getting worse. And the deficit seems to be spiraling out of control.

All this over-spending might be understandable if the state had been cutting our local funding. But over the last six years, the state has increased our district’s funding by over 50 percent—well over $20 million.

Vote Against the ‘Board Bailout’

So, parents and other voters, don’t be fooled by Measure K supporters’ sentimentality.

The proposition is not about “our kids.” Measure K is all about the adult employees of the district.

Your kids will not see much, if any, of the money generated by Measure K.

This measure is nothing but a seven-year, $16.5-million board bailout. A bailout to mask over board members’ years of lack of foresight and poor decision-making in their continued mismanagement of the district’s reserve and general funds.

Vote NO on Measure K!