LAUSD says it needs the Measure EE tax. Skeptics say the district has a spending problem
The pitch for raising taxes for schools used to be images of cracked asphalt playgrounds, leaking classroom roofs and jammed year-round campuses.
But at STEAM Legacy High School in South Gate, Exhibit A is the impressively equipped engineering classroom of teacher Mario Ibarra.
He’s got 3D printers, a laser cutter, an embroidery machine and other gear that his students use to make robots, marble-sorting machines and hydrogen-powered mini-cars. These students, 90% from low-income families, already are success stories in the making. So for Principal Carla Barrera-Ortiz, the question is what more could be accomplished if voters approve Measure EE, a parcel tax on Tuesday’s ballot.
“Just like Mario is very passionate about how can we make this better for students, what weighs on my shoulders every day is how can I make this better for the lives of the community I serve,” Barrera-Ortiz said. “And these students are our community.”
Measure EE would charge property owners 16 cents per year per square foot of interior space, excluding parking areas. For a 1,500-square-foot home that works out to $240. The tax would raise an estimated $500 million annually over its 12-year life, a sizable boost for the nation’s second-largest school system, which spends about $13.7 billion a year.
Seniors and those living on disability payments can apply to be exempt from the tax.
Ibarra’s outfitted classroom is an outlier, the result of extraordinary resourcefulness in applying for grants and partnering with industry. Most district students don’t have anything like these resources under the current funding structure. But more of them would benefit CONTINUE READING: LAUSD says it needs the Measure EE tax. Skeptics say the district has a spending problem - Los Angeles Times
