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Overview
Parcel Tax
Bond Measure
How We Are Funded
Budget Highlights
Financial Q&A
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Our major funding source is a per pupil allocation
from the state called the Revenue Limit. This amount was set in
1972 and has been adjusted annually. It was established as the state’s
response to a court decision in the 1960’s that found California’s
method of funding public schools to be inequitable. The court determined
that there were vast disparities among communities in how much was
being spent on education, often the result of the wealth of the
community or its willingness to tax itself. To equalize the educational
opportunity for all children in the state, the amount of base funding
for a district was capped (the revenue limit) at the level of support
provided in the year prior to 1972. The state’s plan was to
squeeze, over time, the lower funded districts toward the higher
ones thus bringing about more equity. This was accomplished by giving
below average districts annual equalization adjustments on top of
the normal inflationary adjustment. By the mid 1980’s the
courts found that this scheme had been successful — that 93%
of the districts in the state had a per pupil funding allocation
within a $100 range of each other. The remaining 7% were high wealth
districts.
Los Altos School District has a per pupil allocation
(revenue limit) of $5,500, close to the state average for elementary
school districts. Most of the districts in Santa Clara County (and
in the state) have a similar allocation. However, there are a handful
of districts in the area that significantly exceed the state average
in per pupil funding. One of these is Palo Alto Unified School District.
Palo Alto’s revenue limit is $1,000 greater than our district’s
— primarily because of the community’s tax effort for
education in the 1960’s. Because the Palo Alto community taxed
itself more than did Los Altos, their base revenue limit established
in 1972 was significantly greater than the one for Los Altos.
A district's per pupil allocation times the number
of its students gives its total revenue limit. The property tax
collections within the district are compared to this total. If,
as in most cases, the property tax collections are less than the
total, then the state fills in the difference. For Los Altos, property
tax revenues exceeded the calculated total revenue limit
for 2003-04 through 2005-06. This pushed us into basic aid status and resulted in
the state having no funding obligation. We, like all basic aid districts,
got to keep the excess property tax revenues. However, due to significant increases
in state funding, we reverted back to revenue limit status in 2006-07 and expect to remain
a revenue limit district for the next few years.
While there are only a few dozen basic aid districts
in the state, a disproportionate number of them are here in Santa
Clara County. Palo Alto and our high school district, Mountain View-Los
Altos High School District, are also basic aid districts.
Your property tax dollar goes to pay for a number
of services — city government, police and fire protection,
roads and infrastructure upkeep, county government and services,
libraries, parks, and, of course, schools. For the typical Los Altos
resident 20 cents out of every tax dollar goes to the Los Altos
School District.
32% of the state budget (or $45 billion) goes
to K-12 public schools. The state gets its money primarily from
three major sources — sales tax revenues, income taxes, and
bank and corporation taxes.
If you have a question about district or school
finances, you can email your question to the Financial Wizard.
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