San Bruno school officials exploring parcel tax

The direction comes after school community members and teachers rallied in late May at the district headquarters to support higher salaries for educators, whose salary schedule starts at $39,000 annually and spans to $61,000.

“I think we need to proceed with it,” said board Vice President Andriana Shea, who during a recent budget study session pushed to bring the matter to the board for a vote.

Under the board’s direction, pollster Isom Advisors will survey San Bruno voters to gauge their willingness to support the tax, and also begin identifying priority initiatives upon which money generated by the measure should be spent.

The consultant will also determine in which election the tax is most likely to pass, but Jon Isom said he will direct most of his focus to elections next year because the 2021 recall election for Gov. Gavin Newsom is not one he is instructing clients to consider.

Instead, Isom said he will likely begin polling voters this fall, and pushing the timeline out to next year will grant officials the chance to consider adding the tax to the general election ballot, or calling a special election.

Trustee Jennifer Blanco scoffed at the idea of calling a special election, though, fearful of the additional costs facing the district already grappling with a limited budget.

“It just doesn’t sound logical to me,” she said, regarding the concept of calling a special election.

Her colleagues differed though, preferring instead to wait and see what the poll results are before making any determination regarding when to float the measure.

For his part, Isom noted there is a possibility that polling determines voters are more likely to pass the tax in a special election. If that were the case, he raised the notion that it could be worth it for the district to pay the additional, initial cost to receive the lasting benefit.

The polling will cost the district $12,500, Isom said.

The same firm conducted a voter survey for the district last year, and found the district could stand to gain between $1 million annually with an $87 parcel tax or up to $2.3 million if a $199 measure was passed.

The district previously approached a similar proposal in 2017, when polling showed most voters would support a tax worth between $69 and $99 per parcel, according to the report.

But Isom said results from previous polls are worthless, considering the way life has changed over the last year since the pandemic hit.

“We are really in a different time,” he said.

Isom, who advises on measures across the state, said he has discouraged districts from pursuing taxes over the last year and only in the last few months have officials started to consider the initiatives again.

He also noted there may be some resentment lingering among voters over the way districts handled school reopening which must be overcome before tax proposals can be considered viable again.

“It’ll be interesting to see if people are willing to look past the hard feelings they may have,” he said.

San Bruno officials indicated that they have no choice in the matter, because a parcel tax is considered a key step toward overhauling a historically limited budget, which has long hamstrung operations. To that end, San Bruno Park is the only district in San Mateo County that does not benefit from a parcel tax, however, voters approved a bond measure to improve facilities in 2018.

Looking ahead, Superintendent Jose Espinoza said feedback provided by Isom will be critical in determining future decisions by officials.

“We can let the expert help guide us through specific steps,” he said.

In other business, officials instructed Espinoza to send a counteroffer to San Bruno city officials regarding a potential acquisition or lease of the former El Crystal Elementary School campus.

The step advanced discussions following school officials announcing late last year that plans to sell the shuttered campus to the Stratford School for $13.5 million fell apart, after the private school determined it could not afford renovation costs.

City officials have questioned whether there was an opportunity to make use of the site that has been vacant since it was closed in 2018. A Stratford School representative has previously confirmed that the private institution is still interested in the site as well.

austin@smdailyjournal.com