L.A. school board signals support for an education tax increase this year
Hoping to harness the momentum of a six-day teachers' strike that drew broad public sympathy, L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner is pushing a measure to raise local taxes for education.
If Board of Education members approve the plan — and all six have said they will — a parcel tax would go on either the June or November ballot. Getting on the June ballot would require board action before the end of next week.
District staff, pollsters and attorneys unveiled the funding plan at a board meeting on Tuesday. When board members expressed enthusiasm, Beutner said he’d come back later this week with a resolution for the ballot they could vote on.
“This will allow for the accelerated improvement in student learning, further reduction in class size and providing more support to students and educators in schools,” Beutner later said in a statement. “It is time to build on the commitment the community has expressed and move forward together.”
Still to be decided are the size of the proposed tax increase and how a new tax would be calculated. The measure would require the approval of two-thirds of voters within the boundaries of the nation’s second-largest school system.
Officials’ new sense of urgency is a contrast to last July when the board split 3 to 3 on a tax measure and Beutner called the idea premature. New to the job then, Beutner wanted to wait until 2020, to give the district time to rebuild credibility and put together a well-coordinated campaign. A teachers’ strike already threatened then, and some thought that made a tax measure’s prospects doubtful.
Those who backed it, however, thought getting additional money might forestall a strike by CONTINUE READING: L.A. school board signals support for an education tax increase this year - Los Angeles Times
