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Vote NO on PUSD Measures EE and R.
We all want an effective public education system for our children and support adequate funding to get there. Indeed, the PUSD already spends more per student than 80 percent of California School Districts. For instance, the PUSD spends almost 50 percent more per student than Burbank Unified. Although the PUSD has 543 fewer students than Burbank Unified, the PUSD spends a total of $88 million a year more. The results of this massive spending difference? While 54 percent of Burbank 6th grade students can perform math at grade level, only 35 percent of PUSD 6th grade students can perform math at grade level.
PUSD advocates have claimed that the PUSD’s very low test scores are a function of a disproportionate amount of socioeconomically disadvantaged and disabled students. However, Burbank Unified outperforms the PUSD for these categories of students at every tested grade level. Homeless students and English learners also do better at Burbank Unified.
For the 2022-2023 school year, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress shows that District-wide 66% of PUSD students could not perform math at grade-level, and 55% did not meet English Language Arts grade level standards.
The PUSD obviously isn’t producing positive results with the large amount of extra money it receives.
Now the PUSD wants to impose the largest property tax increase in Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre history. It includes no guarantee to spend tax dollars in the classroom to improve education.
Voters approved massive PUSD tax increases in 2008 and again in 2020 to fund schools. The $516 million 2020 tax increase was the largest in history until then. The PUSD hasn’t even spent $456 million of that amount. The PUSD doesn't need $900 million more.
Just four years later the PUSD wants another $900 million. With interest, the PUSD estimates PUSD taxpayers will pay $1.6 billion under Measure R. In addition, the PUSD states it plans TO assess taxpayers with an additional $600 million in principal and interest from new Measure O borrowing. That’s $2.2 BILLION in new borrowing (in addition to $400 million outstanding from old bond principal and interest) that you must pay with higher real estate taxes.
But it gets worse.
Incredibly, the PUSD proposes to use the funds from Measure R to build subsidized housing for PUSD employees with "all related amenities and facilities". The PUSD Board has voted to construct luxury apartments that will be offered to employees at up to 77% discounts. Luxury one bedroom apartments that would normally rent for $2,700 will be offered to staff for as low as $600 a month. (Source: PUSD Board meeting dated August 29, 2024, Item M.5). The PUSD proposes to increase your housing costs to lower the housing costs of its own employees.
Amazingly, a former school board member who was hired as a PUSD principal and in 2022 had total pay and benefits of $183,643, signed the ballot argument supporting these tax measures that will help pay his benefits and potentially provide him with a taxpayer subsidized luxury apartment.
The district has lost more than 10% of its students since 2020. The PUSD has said it could lose another 26% of its students in the next 6 years. But the cost of the district’s employee benefits have increased 21% since 2020. Its spending on outside consulting services rose 57% since 2020.
These new taxes will add hundreds of dollars annually to homeowners’ property tax bills for decades and thousands of dollars to the annual expenses of supermarkets, retail stores, office buildings and commercial facilities.
This tax includes apartment buildings. High rents will increase more on apartments built after February 1, 1995 which are not subject to rent control. PUSD families are getting crushed with unaffordable housing. A new tax makes matters worse.
The PUSD WASTES OUR MONEY.
District bureaucrats and defenders of the failed status quo want taxpayers to bail out a school district with a history of red ink, appalling education results, declining enrollment, runaway administrative hiring and exploding retirement and health care costs. They even want to use the money to build housing for themselves.
The PUSD continues to shortchange local children with poor student achievement scores in English and math, low graduation rates and declining enrollment. DON’T BE FOOLED. Money from these taxes won’t add resources to classrooms. Measure EE will be used to temporarily fix a budget deficit and to pay for the PUSD's over- promised pension and health insurance costs. Measures EE and R are just a grab for money during a presidential election.
REFORMS MUST COME FIRST.
Vote NO on PUSD Measures EE and R.
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PAID FOR BY PASADENA, ALTADENA AND SIERRA MADRE VOTERS FOR SCHOOL REFORM 2024 - NO ON MEASURES EE AND R
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