Better Schools, Not More Taxes

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Measure Q is opposed by the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association.

Measure Q on the November 5th ballot seeks to extend SRVUSD's $144 parcel tax another 9 years. Measure Q supporters claim that it's for "Quality Schools." In fact, Measure Q is financial and academic Quackery. The latest rounds of poor state test (CAASPP test) scores demonstrate that fact.

(Quackery [kwak' e • rē] a noun: the regular exhibition of boastful pretensions and exaggerations. SRVUSD hugely understates its financial position and grossly overstates its academic performance and its concern for appropriate curriculum and library materials — and for parental rights. )

And Q would likely help also to continue SRVUSD's "Queering the Classroom" programs.

First, a brief history: SRVUSD's Measures E and F were both defeated in May 7's expensive special election. Measure E even included a sneaky inflation escalator clause, to increase the $144 parcel tax annually by the CPI inflation rate. Measure F would have added a flat $98 more. Both measures failed, despite the fact that SRVUSD got the low-turnout election it sought (only 26% of eligible voters) by placing E and F in the special election, just two months after the March 5 Primary election. The extra SRVUSD election cost for that maneuver was about $875,000. With its systemic problems continuing, SRVUSD now comes back at taxpayers / voters with Measure Q....

The Measure Q campaign has now begun sending promotional text messages to SRVUSD area residents. But it's better to be slapped with the truth than to be kissed with a lie.

So to begin with: these text messages repeat the District's customary exaggerations and dishonest half truths regarding "quality academics," and express concern about an alleged "$7 million in annual cuts and teacher layoffs."

If Measure Q fails (as it should), SRVUSD will be "down" to only $130 million ahead of 2015 (adjusted for inflation and enrollment changes), when they last renewed their parcel tax. And if they aren't reducing their teaching staff proportionately with their loss of 3,500 students since 2015, then they're even more irresponsible than we had known.

SRVUSD's calendar 2023 salaries and benefits have now been posted by Transparent California. These are quite remarkable. Keep in mind that only a half year of February's retroactive 6% raise is included. Supt. Malloy is gone (fortunately), but Mr. Cammack, his successor has started at $395,000 in salary alone. By next year, he too will be paid more than U.S presidents.

Headline: SRVUSD 2024 CAASPP State Test Scores Again Illustrate Substantial Failure in Core Mission: the Teaching and Learning of Beneficial Knowledge and Skills.

NO on Measure Q

Consider just the first STOP sign above. Just since 2015, when the parcel tax was last renewed, SRVUSD has gone $137 Million ahead of the combined effects of inflation and enrollment numbers.

Even without Measure Q, the District would still be $130 Million ahead. But that would slightly slow down their spending-growth trajectory, and they can't have that! The graph below shows the extent to which the rate of SRVUSD's General Fund growth (87% = salaries and benefits presently) has exceeded combined effects of inflation and enrollment changes (presently, a decline in enrollment, to lowest point since 2009-2010.

SRVUSD $$$: WAY AHEAD OF INFLATION AND ENROLLMENT CHANGES

SRVUSD doesn't need — and doesn't deserve — another parcel-tax renewal.

DECEPTIVE MANEUVERS — AND OTHER TAXES ON THE WAY

An East Bay Times editorial advised voting NO on MeasuresE and F, noting "deceitful ballot language" and SRVUSD's effort to "depress turnout" in its special election. The Times' sharp editorial added that property owners here are paying off SRVUSD bonds. As an example, the EBT editorial figured annual bond payment for property assessed at $1.2 Million (average for the District) at $819, before adding the parcel-tax payouts.

Again, the extra cost to taxpayers for the special election was approximately $875,000 — that much more than if SRVUSD had not sought to depress voter turnout by skipping the March Primary election.

Online DanvilleSanRamon.com news added its own insightful editorial opposing Measures E and F.

Oh, and by the way, SRVUSD is preparing to campaign in 2026 for a massive new $455 Million to $550 Million new bond. Bonds are for capital expenditures, e.g. new facilities. Meanwhile, SRVUSD 's current enrollment is the lowest it's been since 2009-2010 — 15 years ago! SRVUSD's new school-bond measure will require only a 55% affirmative vote for passage, thanks to Year 2000's Prop. 39.

MEANWHILE: Appearing on this November 5th ballot along with Measure Q are Prop. 2 (a $10 Billion school construction bond) and Prop. 4 (a $10 Billion "Climate" infrastructure bond), both likely to cost double, once interest is added.

The November ballot also includes Prop. 5, intended to lower the margin for "affordable housing" and "public infrastructure" to 55%. A California Appellate Court allowed the "ballot label" (what voters see on actual ballots) to skip the fact that Prop. 5 would lower passage rate from the current two thirds rate to just the 55%. So the Appellate Court is down for the scam. Hopefully, voters will see through it.

There's also a 1% city sales-tax increase (Measure N) on San Ramon ballots in November. It would elevate the City's sales tax rate from 8.75% to 9.75%. That would violate Revenue and Taxation Code § 7251.1, which says that local sales taxes cannot exceed the state's rate (now 7.25%) by more than 2%.

Thanks in the meantime to those voters who saw through SRVUSD diversions and campaign deceptions, and who perhaps considered SRVUSD's financial realities — and/or who recognized the harm done to kids by the District's indoctrination programs — and then wisely voted NO to both Measure E and Measure F!

Hopefully those "NO" Voters and many more taxpayers will now vote NO on Measure Q! Below is the "ballot label (what voters will see on their actual ballots, checked here for NO!). Highlighted portions have relatively brief, bullet-pointed responses below that text. There's much more to see in the Ballot Arguments.

THE MEASURE Q "BALLOT LABEL" (WHAT VOTERS SEE ON BALLOT)

SRVUSD doesn't need more money. But they always plead poverty when it's time for the next round of retroactive new raises.
Current tax rate at $144 would amount to $1296 over 9 years. Whatever the amount, more dollars would only perpetuate SRVUSD's harmful "EQUITY" programs — overtly racist "anti-racism," more "queering the classroom" (their term), more depraved porn in high school libraries and even in classrooms, and in short, counterproductive indoctrination that interferes with academics and violates parental rights.
Raising unneeded funds here makes it easier for the State to raise its own taxes further.
The academic programs listed are merely standard obligations for all school districts. They don't require parcel-tax jackpots. But SRVUSD has performed poorly in State testing, especially in 2022 and 2023 and especially in high school math and science (awaiting 2024 scores), compared to the period 2015- 2019.
Increases in General Fund spending would be expected based on inflation and enrollment changes. But over the last 30-plus years SRVUSD has managed revenue and spending increases in excess of those reasonable factors. That excess has now reached $137 Million, just for 2024-2025.
Saying NO to Measure Q would still leave District finances $130 Million ahead this year. The annual $6.8 Million mentioned is presently and has been part of excess SRVUSD funding since 2009- 2015's parcel-tax renewal.
"Senior exemptions"? Yes, these can be sought via applications requiring private information. But fair-minded seniors recognize the inequity in backing taxes they needn't pay themselves. When SRVUSD utilized the senior exemption maneuver in 2004, one parcel-tax promoter applauded SRVUSD’s divide-and-conquer scheme as having “bought off the seniors.” Hopefully, seniors will refuse to go along now.
"No funds for administrator salaries? Those increases, like those for teachers (who start at $64,932 for a 186-day contract year), are now on automatic pilot. Parcel taxes help to the gravy train to keep rolling. For example, the new superintendent has been hired at an initial $395,000 (salary alone, plus very generous benefits. But for each subsequent year, he gets an automatic 3% increase, or less if SRVUSD's unions get less. Other administrators get the same sweet deal. Parcel taxes merely leave other General Fund dollars available for such raises.
Independent oversight"? It's hard to return wild horses back in the corral once the gate is left open. And "Oversight committees" cannot rescind an unwarranted new tax scheme once it's passed. In any case, voters should reject Measure Q and retire the horse it rode in on — 2015's parcel-tax renewal.
Many consider parcel taxes regressive, extracting equal amounts from every non-exempt property owner, commercial or residential, regardless of parcel size or value.

THEY DON'T NEED TO CONTINUE THE PARCEL TAX.

SRVUSD does not need, and does not deserve, Measure Q ($6.8 Million). They're spending over $16,000 per student annually) now — the equivalent of $400,000, in General Fund operational dollars alone, for a classroom roster of 25 students. The teacher sees roughly $120,000 in salary and benefits on average, for 186 employment days per year (vs. 240 work days for most workers) . Where and how does the rest get consumed? In any case: SRVUSD has generated its own inflationary spiral.

In other words: in nine years of the deceptive Measure Q scheme, your money would be gone with the wind. SRVUSD will still be wasting it on harmful curricula.

Beginning in early 2023, as SRVUSD initiated the runup to what became its Measure E / F campaign, the District began paying a polling firm and a campaign advisor large sums. The advisor received a new $56,000 contract on May 8, the day after the Measures E and F election.

Altogether, SRVUSD has paid or committed to pay more than $300,000 (that we know of) in taxpayer dollars to the polling and campaign messaging firms, including the new $56,000 campaign advisor amount.

That advisor is being paid now to "develop informational mailing and fact sheets to be distributed as school and community events"; "provide talking points, FAQs, and a message training"; and to prepare a Power Point presentation (to promote Measure Q); strategies and plans for public meetings, etc.

$35,000 of the $56,000 is for "mailings and advertising," apparently including the large Measure Q promotional card that arrived in voter households on August to inform local residents, along with strategies and plans for internal and external groups local residents.

We urge SRVUSD area residents (Alamo, Blackhawk, Danville, Diablo, San Ramon) to review that card in the context of FPPC restrictions and prohibitions regarding "Campaign Advertisements by Government Agencies." We believe that this mail piece, though it avoids saying "vote yes," nevertheless "unambiguously urges a particular result in an election, based on content, as well as "style, tenor, and timing."

Meanwhile, PTA members and contributors, as well as individual school-foundation members, should be aware that those tax-exempt SRVUSD entities contributed over $60,000 to the losing Measures E and F "private" campaign. See the Campaign $$$ page for details.

The Measure Q rebuttal argument's 250-word limit can illustrate only a portion of the long list of SRVUSD's academic and behavioral scandals.

SRVUSD'S alleged “Quality Schools” have:

Compared dismal 2023 state test results (especially in math and science) only to already poor 2022 results, disregarding the District's substantially higher 2015-2019 benchmarks.

Treated race relations prejudicially, as “supremacist” oppressors vs. victims.

Adopted a “textbook” which capitalizes all racial designations except white, by author who claims that “Being racist against white people is not a thing,” thereby rationalizing her own "prejudice own “prejudice against white people.” Another text advises 7th graders to check out [vile, misogynistic] “Straight Outta Compton” for “change and empowerment.”

In 2022, allowed their superintendent of that time falsely to defame high school Stunt Team girls in District-wide remarks (“Cal High Racist Incident 5.23.22”), then rewarded that superintendent with contract extensions and large raises.

Confused vulnerably impressionable, very young children with inapposite or ungrammatical
pronouns and LGBTQ-themed, read-aloud fictional story books, in a process which staff personnel have called “queering the classroom.”

Implemented “Gender Support Plans,” hidden from even loving, attentive parents, unless suddenly gender-confused children (even the youngest) permit disclosure.

Concealed 4th/5th grade “PRISM” (LGBTQ) Clubs from parents, until those clubs were exposed in national news.

Violated District Policy 4219.24 (which forbids “Displaying or transmitting sexual objects,
pornography, pictures, or depictions to a student”) with illustrated sex manuals and dozens of depraved, pornographic novels in high school libraries.
Characterized parents as “partners” but routinely usurped parental rights.

Received High School girls’ warnings about male teacher’s inappropriate comments, but
transferred that teacher to a Middle School(!) — where his alleged actions resulted in arrest and prosecution — then “lost” original complaint records.

Taxpayers should demand new SRVUSD leadership, curricular sanity, and genuine “Quality Schools."
Meanwhile, taxpayers should reject Measure Q.

ACADEMICS AND OTHER SCANDALS

San Ramon Valley High School received high school girls’ warnings about teacher Nicholas Moseby's inappropriate comments. But then the District transferred that teacher to Diablo Vista Middle School(!) — where his alleged actions resulted in arrest and prosecution — then “lost” original complaint records.

Moseby's arrest represents one of the two most recent cases of alleged sexual abuse of students by SRVUSD personnel. Moseby was originally arrested in September of 2022. He was finally due for trial more than a year later, in November, 2023. But that trial was moved to March of this year. Then it was moved to June (conveniently AFTER SRVUSD's May 7th parcel-tax special election).

Then it was moved to August. Now it's been moved to September.

One naturally wonders: was SRVUSD able to exert political influence behind the scenes to get the trial date changed in order to avoid adverse publicity, just weeks before the District's dual parcel-tax measures were on the May 7 ballot?

Due diligence by SRVUSD should have prevented Moseby's hiring in the first place. But this is a school district which casually places pornography before its students, in libraries and classrooms — material which if placed by a stranger in the hands of students visiting a park would result in arrest and prosecution. That doesn't happen in schools because they have an exception for "educational material.

Another part of this scandal was SRVUSD's loss of complaint records at SRV HS, before Moseby was then moved to Diablo Vista Middle School — where worse offenses became part of the record. And Moseby's arrest was preceded by the August 2022 arrest of Andrew Oliver Kallick, reportedly a noon duty monitor at John Baldwin Elementary School.

DISTRICT'S BAD JUDGMENT AT SRV HIGH, THEN AT DIABLO VISTA MS

CAMPAIGN FINANCE:
E & F CONTRIBUTED AMOUNTS
(Measure Q Likely to Be Similar)
Wait! Aren't the PTAs and school foundations tax-exempt entities? Answer: Yes.

Meanwhile, consider the financial realities of this decade for Bay Area families. SRVUSD, ahead of 2015's budget by $137 million (corrected for inflation and 3500 fewer students) is pretending financial hardship. Don't be fooled into supporting their Measure Q scheme!