The California Supreme Court has removed a major obstacle to new local taxes.
Proposition 218, passed in 1996, requires two-thirds of voters to approve special taxes (on schools or a specific industry or for a specific purpose). But in a 5-to-2 decision, the justices ruled Proposition 218 only applies to taxes proposed by government officials — that voter initiatives need only a simple majority.
Good luck with that.
Local tax is better than state tax. It’s better to repeal state income tax and use local tax to replace it.
Taxpayer can better track and understand local taxes
This decision will just result in more taxes being levied. State taxes will not go down or be repealed.
Yeah, cities are complaining tax revenue is only increasing by 5% a year and not 8% a year. How on earth can they budget with a meager 5% revenue increase when inflation is 2%.
That was quick!!! 
Btw the CA gas tax increase took effect on Nov 1,2017… so it’s @1.5 months… only 
Next tax increase comes in 3… 2… 1…
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — California is moving closer to charging drivers for every mile they drive.
The state says it needs more money for road repairs, and the gas tax just isn’t bringing in enough revenue.
http://cbslocal.com/2017/12/12/california-considers-mileage-tax/
Why not just raise the gas tax? They bring in more revenue in the near/mid future and encourage adoption of electric vehicles. Win, win for “them.”
Well, they need to tax the wealthy and elite Tesla drivers, right?
I think sales tax, gas tax, milage tax and other consumption tax will become the major tax increasing sources in California since income tax and property tax have reached the ceiling. However, consumption tax increase affects everyone so the voter pushback may surprise the liberals. Rich liberals might not care about 2k income tax increase, an average joe may balk at $100 gas tax increase. They can try to increase in Sacramanto secretly, but voters may hand them some restrictions quickly. It’s laughable that some liberals are thinking that Californians are progressive enough to approve any tax increases. Wait until the taxpayers awaken.
Spending control will be the only option.
They are too busy spending the money on public transit projects that’ll lose money every year.
Just wait for the next recession. CA is having budget issues with the stock market hitting all-time highs and producing lots of stock profits to tax. Once a recession happens and the market tanks, then the state will lose all the tax on stock profits. It’ll be a massive financial crisis for the state. The top 1% are paying 45% of the state income taxes in CA. Those people have highly volatile incomes that are usually heavily dependent on investment gains.
This is the 2nd year in a row(?) that CUSD is going to be cutting funding. I haven’t explored this issue deeply but would love to know where my property taxes are going and what percentage comes back to the schools.
Quoting
"Good Evening,
_The Cupertino Union School Board of Education and District have identified the budget as one of its key priorities for the 2017 - 2018 school year. The budget as a priority will remain a focus moving into future years as well. _
The CUSD priority states:
Ensure fiscal solvency, to include no deficit spending, a balanced budget, and a sufficient reserve, through a combination of budget cuts and new revenue enhancements.
_Specific focus will be placed on understanding the values and needs of all stakeholders, informing all of them about our budget, aligning instructional practices, and attracting and retaining quality staff. _
Cupertino remains one of the lowest funded school districts in California based on the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). As we look at our current Budget forecast, the Cupertino Union School District needs to reduce the General Fund budget and identify revenue enhancement opportunities. CUSD will be looking to cut a minimum of $5 million starting in the 2018-19 school year. We are in the initial stages of this planning process and want to hear from our CUSD families as we begin exploring options."
Property value has been skyrocketing, property tax has been rising so quickly. Where’s the cost increase comparing to a few years ago? Is it too much pay raise? or too much pension increasing? or student population decrease?
It is probably caused by the decline of enrollment in CUSD overall. CUSD has been in and out of basic aid status, which means the funding it receives is proportional to the average daily attendance.
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My guess is this is a typical government budget cut. It means the increase in budget from prior year is smaller than they want.
“The Fiscal Year 2017/2018 Adopted Budget reflects a total City budget of $148.9 million, an increase of $15.6 million or 12% when compared to the FY 2017 Adopted Budget. The City’s General Fund is at $75.1 million, a decrease of $2.2 million or 3% from the FY 2017 Adopted Budget. This year the City has made strategic investments in the areas of transportation, emergency preparedness, senior recreation services, and Council staff support.”
http://www.cupertino.org/our-city/departments/finance/budget-at-a-glance
It’s time to find out where your money is going.
That is a myth. Only 1-2% of properties are sold every year the rest only go up at 2%… property tax is stable does not go up much…Spending keeps going up at 7% thanks to health care education and pensions… unsustainable
Genuinely would like to understand this.
Are there any links which detail how funding works for schooling in CA & also any website where I can get data for CUSD or other schools in CA?
CUSD website has a breakdown of funding. I think 77% is from the state. The state tries to even out funding in the name of fairness. EPA gets more funding per student than CUSD.
That’s my understanding as well. A basic aid district is one whose local property taxes meet or exceed its revenue limit the state guarantees. If the local property taxes are below the revenue limit, the state will make up the rest so that the school funding will always stay no lower than the state guarantees.
The state funds the school based on the number of students. So if a school district relies on the state to make up the property tax deficiency, the total funding will be proportional to number of students, if not counting program based funding.
There was mercury news report on this.
Unfortunately, i read it after i bought my house in CUSD. 
However, i couldn’t figure out what was the equation to define school funding at all.
If the declining students number is the problem, then funding per student should be same. However, at least the report i read was saying cusd has smaller budget per student than EPA.
That part was really confusing to me.
CUSD residents pay more property tax yet gets less funding per student than EPA?
Anyway, like everyone else, i wonder where my property tax go.
One thing CUSD does do well in my opinion, they keep teacher’s salary in high range compare to other BA cities by keeping relatively high teacher to student ratio. Most of teachers i have met, they are well qualified. However, one teacher for 20 kids (even kinders) without assistant teacher was a surprise for me. Well, my kids teachers did a fantastic jobs, though.
EPA students need more resource to educate them since their parents are less educated and less involved. On the social justice front, it’s fair for EPA schools get more funding than Cupertino. Cupertino parents can donate to schools and also volunteer at schools.
The other solution is for Cupertino parents to have more kids in order to raise the school revenue.