By Buster Baer
Staff Writer
This November, California will be voting on Jerry Brown’s new tax initiative, Proposition 30, which will affect many high schools by resulting in further budget cuts or providing much needed revenue.
Proposition 30 promises to raise $8.5 billion for the purpose of California’s under-budgeted schools by increasing taxes on Californians who are making an income of more than $250,000 each year while also requesting a 0.25 % rise in sales taxes.
“We’re all running deficits,” Dr. Ben Dale said. “There is no district that isn’t. If we don’t increase revenues, we’re going to be in real trouble. We’ll be talking furloughs and layoffs and cuts for everybody.”
Layoffs and larger class sizes are also a possibility, according to MBUSD board president Ellen Rosenberg. Although the 6 month negotiations between the Manhattan Beach Teacher’s Association and Manhattan Beach Unified School District board of trustees has come to a tentative conclusion, there may be problems later in the school year if the bill is not passed.
“We have agreed to the ongoing salary raise of 3% for the teachers,” Rosenberg said. “But if our revenue is reduced, then we will have to reduce it to what we can afford as a district.”
If the bill is not passed and California schools remain without a revenue increase, the negotiations will return to how they were before September 6’s conclusion. The teacher’s well-contested salary increase would turn into a one year raise, while many programs and teachers will be cut at Mira Costa. However, if the bill is passed, the recent negotiations between the MBUSD and MBUTA will remain as they are, with a 3% salary increase for the teachers. The new revenue could also be applied to other avenues of the budget.
“I feel that right now, as an educator, my most important responsibility is to place mobile device technology in the hands of students,” Dale said.
Not only would the revenue boost from Prop. 30 uphold the teacher and district negotiations, but would also provide other opportunities. Mira Costa could begin to satiate its liking to new technologies, providing more students with iPads. The revenue from Prop 30 would also keep class sizes small, providing a more personal learning environment. However, some distrust the promises made by Jerry Brown.
“They’re allowed to take the money for the schools and use it for other stuff and then replace that money with the money from the new taxes,” Junior Sabrina Mongiello said. “You can move the money all around, but Prop. 30 does not guarantee any money for new funding for schools.”
Opponents of Prop. 30 don’t find it fair to charge the wealthier population a higher percentage of taxes and are concerned because of the recent scandals in the Sacramento Bureaucracy under Jerry Brown’s governorship. These include the California State Park scandal in which, after claiming they had gone bankrupt, the California State Park Department was found with a $54,000,000 surplus.
However the effects of Prop. 30 on Costa will be known after the vote on November 6.
“I just hope our school can continue to get the money it needs, otherwise it will be a tough next couple of years,” senior April Barajas said.
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