Ross Valley parcel tax skepticism persists

Voters remain hesitant to renew a Ross Valley School District parcel tax if it carries a substantial increase, according to new poll results.

An average of about 65% of the 418 poll respondents had a favorable view of a potential renewal of the $749 per parcel tax, plus a proposed $540 per parcel increase, Bryan Godbe, president of San Mateo-based Godbe Research consulting firm, told trustees on Wednesday.

The 65% favorability rating is “within striking distance” of the two-thirds approval that would be needed for the tax measure to pass, Godbe said. However, it is a less-than-ideal situation since the 65% is subject to a 4% or 5% margin of error and is not enough to offer an overwhelming endorsement.

The phone, text and email survey of likely voters in the June 2 statewide primary election was administered Nov. 10 through 12, Godbe said.

It is similar to the results that were presented to the board before the first failed try at passing a parcel tax — Measure E — in May. In that election, almost 63% of voters approved Measure E, about 4 percentage points short of the two-thirds needed.

“We’re optimistic, but there’s still work to do,” Superintendent Tyler Graff said of the poll results.

Graff said the new poll results and the district’s revised plans for a parcel tax proposal were “better than the last time” with Measure E. Graff noted that the new tax proposal would eliminate two problems that were identified with Measure E.

Those were switching the timing to a general election date, instead of the special election that took place in May and returning to a flat tax per-parcel system, instead of the per-square-foot plan that caused confusion among voters and sparked outrage from taxpayers with large properties who would have to pay more.

“Our voters have had a flat tax for 30 years,” Graff said. “They didn’t want to change their method.”

What hasn’t really changed is the ballpark amount of increase the district seeks to add to be able to pay its teachers better wages. Measure E was seeking an additional $3 million to be generated beyond the $7.8 million the renewal tax generates annually.

Graff said Tuesday the district needs to pinpoint the actual financial sweet spot for the increase that will be acceptable to voters and also afford decent teacher wages.

“If we could just come up with the money to pay our teachers enough so they could compete in the bottom quartile of Marin teachers’ salaries, I would be happy with that,” Graff said.

District teachers this year settled negotiations on a one-year contract with the district by agreeing to zero-percent raises.

The agreement does include a one-time $1,000 bonus off the salary schedule for each teacher or counselor, and it does cover increases in health care benefits.

But agreeing to a plan of zero-percent raises took a lot of devotion to the district and appreciation of its tight finances, Autumn Arbree, a social worker at White Hill Middle School in Fairfax, said after Wednesday’s meeting.

“I think that speaks a lot to our educators,” Arbree said. “It’s not that we think the district doesn’t value us. It’s because the funds simply aren’t there.”

She said teachers are not out to be on top of the Marin salary scale, they just want to be competitive with their peers, she said.

“Because if we can’t keep up with the competition, then we can’t maintain all the things that make our schools really wonderful, and the things that make families want to call Ross Valley home,” Arbree said.

Graff said the board would discuss whether to propose a different measure, such as one with a smaller increase or a lower annual cost-of-living rise, at an upcoming board meeting on Jan. 27. The survey did give poll respondents some lower cost options, but those did not move the needle of favorability, according to Godbe.

“We need to actually talk to people,” board president Rachel Litwack said.

A final vote on whether to place the measure on the June 2 ballot is expected to be taken Feb. 11, Graff said.

Mimi Willard, president of the Marin-based Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers, told trustees at Wednesday’s meeting that the district will need to revise its numbers if it doesn’t want to fail again.

“The poll design that you have masks a conclusion that you should draw, which is that you should seek a lower parcel tax increase,” Willard said.

“On the face of it, all the scenarios in the polling results presented tonight come in slightly under the two-thirds approval needed to pass the tax, and with a large margin of error,” she said. “But it is illogical that voters don’t care whether you ask for less.”

Willard said she frequently sees that voters tend to get impatient taking polls. Once they say “no” at the beginning, they tend to repeat that response, even if the pollsters lower the amount.

“When you have a long poll with many questions, people are fatigued by the end of the poll,” Willard said. “They are annoyed that you keep asking questions, so they just keep saying ‘no.'”

She added pollsters did not ask respondents about whether they were concerned about a potential “tax tsunami” that is approaching Marin voters in 2026.

“The June ballot will have a huge MarinHealth bond, a SMART tax, and, very possibly, a countywide child care tax that is currently being polled for,” Willard said. “The November ballot will have the Tam Union parcel tax and who knows what else.”

One positive indicator in the current survey was that 73% of likely voters said they approved of the job the district was doing this year to manage taxpayer dollars.

“This is a big difference,” trustee Daniel Cassidy said, referring to the Measure E effort. “People are more in favor of how we’re managing the money. That, to me, is a sign that we’re telling the right story.”

The district, which has the lowest per-pupil state subsidies of all Marin school districts and serves an area that is one of the lowest property tax bases in the county, also suffers from a growing budget deficit in its $30 million spending plan.

Chris Carson, the district’s chief finance officer, said Tuesday that the district’s budget reserves, currently at 7.3%, will dip to 5.9% in 2026-27 and 4.2% in 2027-28. After that, the reserves level could possibly dip below 3%, the minimum reserves mandated by the state, if nothing is done to offset the deficit.

“Last year, the district deficit spent approximately $2.6 million,” Graff said in an email Thursday. “This year we are projected to deficit spend approximately $3 million.”

Graff said that “while the size of the annual deficit decreases in subsequent years, spending at these levels remains unsustainable, given our low revenue base,” he said.

If the new parcel tax does not pass, the district will need to cut $1 million from the budget in 2026-27, likely dipping into staff layoffs or even the possibility of closing a school, he said.

“Over the past four years, we have worked hard to make reductions as far from the classroom as possible,” Graff said. “Unfortunately, we are now at a point where many of the potential reductions would directly affect student programs and instructional support.”

The current parcel tax expires June 30, 2028.

Ross Valley School District serves about 1,720 students in four elementary schools and a middle school in Fairfax and San Anselmo.