Community Meeting on Possible Schools Parcel Tax

The Albany school board has called a community meeting for Tuesday night to discuss putting a parcel tax on the Nov. 2014 ballot.

The meeting will be held from 7-8:30 p.m. at Albany City Hall.

School officials have not identified a specific purpose for the tax.

Board Vice President Jonathan Knight told Patch that "part of the conversation will be about whether the measure should be targeted to specific areas of need."

"The impetus for the meeting is that one of our current parcel taxes, Measure I, will expire in 2015," he said via email. "Measure I was an emergency tax intended to tide us over until the end of the recession. Yet the state has not restored funding to anything near prerecession levels."

The agenda report for the meeting also notes that two of Albany's current parcel taxes for schools – Measure I and Measure J – are legally questionable because they are "split role" taxes, which the state Court of Appeal ruled invalid in Alameda (Borikas vs Alameda Unified). Split role taxes apply different rates, depending on the type of parcel, typically imposing one rate for residential parcels and another rate for commercial parcels.

It's not clear how many existing split role taxes would be affected by the decision, but "it is clear the Borikas decision would apply to any new measure or renewal of an existing measure with a differentiated rate structure," according to the agenda packet report.

The agenda packet also includes lists of funding priorities from the various schools and the district office.

Knight says he hopes many people show up for the community meeting to provide feedback on a possible parcel tax.

"I have heard from many members of the community who are eager to maintain Albany's generous level of local school funding so that the district can keep and maybe even enhance its educational program," he said.

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