During tomorrow night's Hayward Unified School District (HUSD) Board of Trustees meeting, consultants with EMC Research and Team CivX will present on results from polling they conducted on the viability of a parcel tax. But the results indicate that District residents may be feeling tired of additional taxes. While support was always above 50%, only more modest taxes with shorter lifespans were able to cross the 67% threshold necessary to pass a property tax measure.

The results could hamper efforts at future fiscal stability that HUSD needs in order to keep future cuts at bay. The most popular plans are only estimated to generate between $3,630,000 and $7,230,000 per year over 12 years. For context, the District is currently hoping to raise an additional $20,000,000 to maintain existing services and personnel while also facing budget reductions of around $1,000,000 per year due to declining enrollment.

Two Different Kinds of Taxes

According to the presentation from the consultants, respondents generally believe that HUSD is in need of more money with 64% of respondents saying HUSD has Great or Some Need—though 22% say they're not sure. HUSD Parents, who made up 18% of the respondents, were both more sure that HUSD needed funding (67%) and also more sure that they didn't need funding (18% compared to 14% of total residents). This may indicate that parents believe that School District is either hiding funding or mismanaging existing funding in some way.

The consultants pitched two kinds of property taxes: flat-rate and square footage-based. Flat rate taxes would charge a certain amount for any homeowner regardless of what kind of home they own—condo or mansion, small or large, everyone would pay the same price. Square footage-based taxes would charge a certain amount per square foot of the building—for example, at $0.30 per sq/ft a 1,200 sq/ft home would pay $360/year while a 2,500 sq/ft home would pay $750/year.

The initial square footage-based tax was pitched at $0.30 per sq/ft and estimated to provide $35,500,000 per year for 12 years. While the flat-rate tax was pitched at $225 per parcel and estimated to provide $9,300,000 per year. Both included language allowing senior exemptions, annual adjustments, and oversight bodies.

Community Priorities

The most popular priorities of respondents were those focused on academics, helping students learn to read and improve basic math skills, sustain strong academic programs, and provide job training for in-demand careers. The least popular priorities were preventing layoffs and maintaining student and family support. However, the difference between these was only 13% and even the least popular had 79% support from respondents.

Although the consultants ranked messaging around family involvement, local control, and preventing cuts to students, teachers, and programs as the most persuasive information for voters, respondents ranked academic preparedness and school athletics as more convincing.

The information may influence voters by as much as 4% to vote for the measure, though the margin of error is ±5%, so it's difficult to be certain.

Crossing The High Bar

Due to California State Law, parcel taxes require a 2/3rds majority (67%) vote from the general public to pass. And according to polling, the square-footage parcel tax won't make the cut. Reducing the life of the tax from 12 years to 4 years raised the approval of the $0.30 per sq/ft tax to 66%, but that's still short of what's needed for approval.

However, the flat-rate tax was more popular with voters. The initial $225 for 12 years language only received 64% approval, while all alternatives—which produced less revenue for the District—received 68% approval or higher. The $88 per parcel over 12 years plan had 76% approval but would only bring in approximately $3,630,000 per year—less than the amount of one-time funding expiring this year.

Part of the concern may be that national-level cuts are trickling down to local jurisdictions not having enough money to operate. The City of Hayward is eyeing a Mello-Roos tax this year to help balance its budget, and a State-wide sales tax measure will likely be on a coming ballot to help struggling transit agencies like BART and AC Transit. Combined with high inflation, rising unemployment, and a slow-down on jobs being added to the economy, local households may not be able to afford so many taxes in one year.

Counselors And Community Specialists Being Cut

Due to the elimination of one-time funding sources, HUSD will reduce the allocations of Social-Emotional Counselors and Community School Specialists at a number of Elementary and High Schools. This is in response to the expiration of $4-5,000,000 in one-time funding and arrives at the same time as massive funding cuts to Hayward Promise Neighborhoods.

Comprehensive High School Sites will maintain 1 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Social-Emotional Counselor, as will all Community Schools which get additional funding. All other Elementary, Middle, and alternative High School sites will only receive .5 FTE for Social-Emotional Counselors, likely meaning one person will serve multiple sites. At the same time, Community School Specialists will be eliminated for all schools that are not designated as Community Schools—a full list of the 11 sites is listed in a document provided by the District.

13 FTE from other grant-funded positions from Hayward Promise Neighborhoods and ARSI Grants will also be eliminated, including many positions that would help newcomer immigrant and refugee families. The District has no plans to fund these positions due to insufficient funding.

Lagging Indicators Muddy Impact Of Programs

The Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) Update outlines the varied strategies the District has implemented in order to improve student outcomes. The full report is 79 pages of metrics, along with the progress made last year and a mid-year update for the second year of the LCAP. The Staff presentation shows mixed results, however many of the important metrics are "lagging indicators". These are things like graduation rates, test scores, and chronic absenteeism rates that are only likely to change after the change has taken place.

For example, according to the Staff Presentation, the District has spent over $3,228,000 on what they call Coordination Organizational Support Teams (COST) systems at all school sites. These connect students to academic, behavioral, health, and emotional supports to, among other things, reduce chronic absenteeism. But data from AY 25/26 isn't available yet, and the impact from one year of the program is only a 2.2% decrease in chronic absenteeism—from 28.8% to 26.6%.

Similarly, over $8,000,000 has been spent on various initiatives to improve feelings of Student Safety and School Connectedness on the California Healthy Kids survey. The initiatives include Professional Development and programs around Relationship-Centered Schools, emphasizing social-emotional learning with Calm Spaces and Student Changemakers, and Wellness Centers, Social Emotional Learning and restorative practice staff training, peer advocacy.

Despite the large investments, the lagging indicators are mixed with feelings of Student Safety increasing by 1% in 5th and 7th grades, but decreasing by 2-3% in 9th and 11th grades. At the same time, School Connectedness is up in High School, but down in Middle School by 1%. But since they are lagging indicators—this data compares AY 23/24 with AY 24/25—the effects may not be felt for multiple years after the strategy is implemented.

Goals And Spending Not Lining Up

In looking at the full report, which is dense and packed with jargon, it appears that some goals were set too low while funding hasn't been spent as budgeted for some programs. For example, the High School Dropout rate was 18.3% in AY 22/23 with a goal of 15.3% in AY 26/27. But the dropout rate was 15.5% in the following year and was 13.4% in AY 24/25. It appears as though all subgroups like English Learners, Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, and Foster Youth were all multiple points below the target just this past year. Graduation rates are similarly much higher than the targets already.

On the budget front, Deeper Learning Activities, which includes AASAI activities, GATE programs, and School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA) activities have barely spent any of their funding. According to the report, over $2,800,000 was budgeted for these programs while only $120,000 has been spent this year. Meanwhile, Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) and Science Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) programs were budgeted over $6,500,000 and have spent over $7,255,000 so far this year.

It's possible that this is due to reshuffling funding because of budget shortfalls, but hopefully District Staff will provide context for this plan at Wednesday's meeting.