Your Questions: The Flier for Schools Tax
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Posted: Thursday, October 14, 2010 12:45 pm |Updated: 1:15 pm, Thu Oct 14, 2010.
Posted on October 14, 2010
Several parents have sent me emails after seeing their kids come home with fliers from San Diego Unified about its proposed parcel tax, Proposition J.
The fliers emphasize the extent of school budget cuts so far and warn that deeper cuts are coming. San Diego Unified has spent roughly $4,700 on fliers that it has sent home with schoolchildren and passed out at community meetings held at schools. The question that readers asked me is: Is this legal?
School districts and other public agencies are allowed to provide information about ballot measures that impact them. But they aren't allowed to campaign for or against a measure with public funds. Opponents of the parcel tax for San Diego Unified schools argue that the fliers are implicitly advocating for the tax.
So what do the fliers say? They include straightforward information about what school programs are on the chopping block, but also state that "every effort has been made to keep cuts away from the classroom," a subjective statement that school district critics would contest.
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