Sunday Commentary: Measure N Passed – Now What? Focus Will Turn Back to Declining Enrollment and Housing

By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor

Davis, CA – Beth Bourne and Michael Harrington separately attempted to defeat the latest parcel tax.  They became the latest to make a dent in the final total.

Harrington in particular, has found success in efforts to defeat water rate increases and city parcel taxes and, of course, land use projects, but he found that schools are a bit harder to touch.  In fact, Measure N did slightly better than the previous parcel tax in 2020 despite an IE campaign that saw real money pumped into the effort to defeat the parcel tax.

Despite complaints from Harrington and others, the district did the right thing by attempting to make the parcel tax permanent with an inflator.

The problem that the district has is that the funding gap between state funding and the level that the district wants to fund its programs is permanent.  DJUSD is disadvantaged by the state’s Local Control Funding Formula which prioritizes funding to districts with higher numbers of disadvantaged kids.

That funding gap wasn’t going to change.  And so the district had a choice—they put parcel taxes forward that would expire every four or eight years and they’d go through this again, or they could attempt to ask the voters for a permanent tax.  68.24 percent of the voters agreed to the permanent tax—that’s a pretty strong vote of confidence.

Of course, the district is not out of the woods.

The current budget situation, for example, could lead to layoffs come June.

Long term, the district faces the potential of declining enrollment.  The district has propped up that enrollment with out-of-district transfers.

From conversations both on the Vanguard and from people complaining about out-of-district transfers in the context of the election, it is clear that the district really has a lot of … wait for it … EDUCATION to do for the community on these vital interests.

And while I think the district did a good job putting an FAQ out on the parcel tax and extensively addressed some of the concerns and questions raised by folks in the community, an FAQ is not going to reach a majority of folks in the community who are only sporadically paying attention.

As I saw the arguments put out by some of the no folks and their graphics, I recognized that a little information is a very dangerous thing—especially when people don’t understand the context and the complex funding requirements for the district.

Out-of-district transfers are a good thing, not a bad thing, for the school district.  Moreover, with the lack of housing available in Davis and state laws, the district really cannot reduce the number of out-of-district transfers—nor is it in their interest to do so.

As DJUSD points out, “DJUSD is required to accept Interdistrict Transfers for students who meet the Resident by Employment standard in Ed. Code 48204, if space is available in the requested grade, school, or program.”

Further, “This code states that students whose parents work in Davis for at least 10 hours per week are considered residents by employment and therefore may be accepted into the school district, if space is available.”

Under this Education Code, “they can only be denied admittance into the district under certain circumstances, including if we are at capacity at the requested school site, grade level or program.”

In addition, “once a student is accepted as a resident by employment, the IDT cannot be revoked in future years, even if overcrowding does occur.”

Of our current interdistrict transfer requests, 63% are by reason of employment.

The district explains, “Of the IDTs without an employment connection, 79% are students who have already been in the district—i.e. a continuing non-resident student in this category or a student who recently moved out of the school district boundary. Usually it is the case where a student started their education by living in Davis and then for a variety of reasons, their families moved outside the district. Since the student is our current student, we honor their ability to remain in the district from year to year.”

In short, the district is not taking on the burden of educating people from other communities, they are taking on the burden of educating the children of people who work in our community but cannot afford to live here because of our restrictive housing policies.

I think at the end of the day, people like Michael Harrington mistakenly believe that the parcel tax passage would increase pressure for additional housing.

I tried to put out that the two issues were actually separate and distinct—but, if anything, the loss of the parcel tax would probably have increased rather than decreased the pressure for more housing.

Housing is going to be part of this equation—like it or not—with or without the parcel tax issue, which has now largely been settled.

From 2023, Superintendent Matt Best said, “We know that our resident student numbers are declining and that’s masked by increasing non-resident students.”

As board member Joe DiNunzio put it, “We’re nearing a tipping point.” He said, “I think we are coming very close to the ceiling on the number of non-resident students we have. And if those numbers do in fact fall, then it’s going to have a huge impact on our ability to maintain the school system that we currently have.”

Joe DiNunzio explained that “enrollment is so important because our budget is tied to ADA—the number of average daily attendance of our students.”

As he explained, when the enrollment is declining, “it’s a real challenge” as money declines.  He explained that “we are operating right now with a relatively thin margin of budget.  So it becomes an extraordinarily big economic challenge.”

DiNunzio emphasized “we collectively have a shared interest.”  He said, “I believe from a value standpoint, the school district and the city are tightly aligned.”  He said, “We recognize that development and a lot of the political and economic challenges of it are part of the fabric of our community.”

Make no mistake—that battle is coming.  Probably not until next year, unless the council puts a Measure J amendment on the ballot for November.