LAUSD’s Parcel Tax Failure and the *Reasonableness* of Teacher Pay in L.A.
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) includes “most of the city of Los Angeles, along with all or portions of 26 cities and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. About 4.8 million people live within the District’s boundaries.” In 2018-19, LAUSD’s estimated enrollment was 694,096 students.
On June 04, 2019, voters within the LAUSD boundary could have voted to approve or reject Measure EE, a school parcel tax measure authorizing LAUSD to levy 16-cents-per-square-foot tax over 12 years to fund the LAUSD as follows, in brief:
Proceeds from the Tax shall be used for: lowering class sizes; providing school nursing, library, and counseling services and other health and human services for student support; providing instructional programs, school resources, and materials; retaining and attracting teachers and school employees; and providing necessary administrative services. …This Measure requires a two-thirds (2/3) vote for passage.
The opportunity to vote was there, but oh so few chose to take it.
Measure EE failed, 45.68% to 54.32%. However, the greater failure of Measure EE is in its incredibly low voter turnout. According to Los Angeles Almanac, 5.3M individuals were registered to vote at the time of the 2018 general election. So, even if all were not eligible to vote on Measure EE– even if only half were eligible– that would have been over 2.5M voters.
For Measure EE, only 304,321 voters participated (139,027 “yes”; 165,294 “no”).
One could think of that as one voter turning out for every two LAUSD students.
This appears not so much a rejection of Measure EE as it is a rejection of the right (and responsibility) to vote.
Unfortunately, low turnout is common in local elections. (In 2015, to entice voter turnout for a school board runoff between Bernard Keyser and Ref Rodriguez, LAUSD District 5 even entered voters in a lottery offering cash prizes. Even so, voter turnout was only 10%.) However, reading comments/opinions about CONTINUE READING: LAUSD’s Parcel Tax Failure and the *Reasonableness* of Teacher Pay in L.A. | deutsch29