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The Menlo Park City School District’s governing board has adopted a budget that shows the district will have to dip into its reserves starting this year, despite spending cuts and the approval of an additional parcel tax.
While the exact budget figures aren’t firm because the district hasn’t yet formally adopted contracts with its employees, projections that include raises show the district operating at a modest deficit of $12,824 in the 2017-18 fiscal year. The deficit increases each year to $980,210 four years out, in the 2020-21 fiscal year.
By the 2021-22 fiscal year, the deficit is projected to be $1.69 million, eating into reserves so they dip below the board’s policy of holding at least 15 percent of total annual spending in reserves. Reserves are projected to drop from 22.5 percent in the 2017-18 fiscal year to 12.5 percent in 2021-22.
The district doesn’t want to say exactly how much it has projected for raises each year because that would put it at a disadvantage in contract negotiations, but the chief business officer, Ahmad Sheikholeslami, said the amount projected over the next two fiscal years is similar to the raises proposed in upcoming contracts that have been agreed to by unions and district negotiators.
The school board meets tonight, June 20, at 7:10 p.m. in the district offices, 181 Encinal Avenue, to vote on a two-year contract with the teachers’ union and to hold a public hearing on the contract with the union representing most non-teaching employees. The board is scheduled to vote on the contract with the non-teachers on June 27.
Both contracts propose 2 percent increases in salary schedules effective July 1, 2017, and 3 percent increases on July 1, 2018.
The adopted budget includes $800,000 in cuts in current and projected spending for the 2017-18 fiscal year and an additional $400,000 in cuts for the 2018-19 fiscal year. Revenues of $1.2 million a year are expected from the parcel tax approved by voters in March.
The budget cuts come from a slight increase in class sizes, which Mr. Sheikholeslami said should average 24 students in grades 6 through 8 and 23 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The district is also cutting some non-teacher staffing in the district office, educational services and business services.
Mr. Sheikholeslami said the district ended the school year with 3,004 students, five below the number that had been projected in November 2015. The projected enrollment for 2017-18 is 3,052. He said that while the coming year’s enrollment numbers won’t be known until September, “I do think there is a slight slowdown.”
The budget projects an annual increase in property-tax revenues of 6.1 percent until 2019-20 and then at a lower rate after that.
Mr. Sheikholeslami warned that the area is in “one of the longest growth periods in history right now,” a situation he and other local officials have warned could change at any time.
The budget was unanimously adopted by the school board at its June 13 meeting, with board member Caroline Lucas absent.
As predicted, the board will spend the recently passed parcel tax on raises for staff. They still don’t get it.
The parcel tax could be part of the needed funding for an adequate staff, which by the way is THE biggest asset of the district. Not to diminish the value of the buildings, chairs, and books. Without properly trained staff in the administrative office, classroom and facilities, the district would have had a very different outcome than it has over the past decade…..
If the Board cannot produce a balanced budget with all the current parcel taxes then it has no business giving any salary increases.
It won’t fill the gap, but perhaps explaining clearly why a district with four schools needs to have both a Superintendent AND an Assistant Superintendent would be a start. Ultimately, it would be interesting to see an exploratory committee effort to see if there could be cost savings if Las Lomitas and MPCSD (or include Ravenswood too to create a Menlo-Atherton Unified district) could merge, and to work out how such a merger could take place. We have three elementary/middle school districts with three superintendents, three sets of front office staff…redundancies all around, right?
Peter, part of the reason is that the Union is very powerful. These 2% and 3% raises may have happened as part of an old negotiation. But the Union also had a very strong argument because the Menlo Park City School District has increased its administrative costs exponentially. Take a look at the administrative head count in 2009, and how much overhead has been added. Where there were once 12 there are now 32 to oversee five schools. These are just the folks in the District Office and not including Principals, VPs and school secretaries.
As contrast, Palo Alto is a unified school district and runs schools with an administrative staff of 40 to run 17 schools and a few satellite schools. It’s pretty hard for Menlo Park to cry poverty when it comes to faculty if they are able to carry so many administrative salaries.
The School Board President has REFUSED to allow this statement by another elected School Board member to be placed in the Board packet or to read this statement at the Board meeting (since Caroline Lucas will not be able to attend this meeting:
Dear Fellow Members of the Board,
I know that the board is seeking input from the public prior to voting on the approval of the proposed multiyear contract for MPEA. As I shared when we initially set the calendar, I am unable to attend this meeting yet will watch the public input via video and share any comments with you before the vote. In the meantime, however for tonight’s discussion, I am including comments for the president to read.
Comments from Trustee Caroline Lucas:
I currently have two reservations about proceeding with this contract.
1. The district’s stated rationale for proposing the contract is to “enable the district to continue to recruit and maintain excellent certificated staff” and yet that rationale has not actually been clearly explained to us nor the public.
2. The basic principles of negotiation used by the district are unclear.
The reason for my first reservation, that the district’s rationale for the proposed contract is not substantiated, is as follows:
Despite my numerous prior attempts to gather data in order to support what is the district is now recommending, nothing has been produced. Not only was the formation of a Teacher Recruitment and Retention Committee rejected by the board, but the district has not provided any information to suggest that this proposed contract will “enable the district to continue to recruit and maintain excellent certificated staff”. It seems that the district is speculating based on past practices and possibly on the past practices of other districts that this contract will attract and retain teachers. While past practices may in fact be the same ones that are needed to recruit and retain teachers today, at this point, that has not been made clear. It’s not been explained how class size, housing stipends, work year length, soft/hard benefits etc. factor into what it takes to attract and retain an excellent teaching staff in this district at this point in time. To reiterate my first reservation about proceeding with this contract: the stated rationale for approving the contract has not been substantiated.
I am supportive of teachers and the hard work they do for our children; they are, in fact, the backbone of our school district, delivering high quality instruction and interfacing with children and parents daily, in addition to engaging in cutting edge professional development and improving their practice. If my fellow board members want to acknowledge this quality/quantity of work for what it is with a compensation increase, then it should be stated as such, but not put forth as a recruitment and retention strategy, as there is nothing to support this expense are being part of that strategy.
The reason for my second reservation, that the basic principles of negotiation used by the district are unclear, is as follows:
Upon what are various types of compensation increases given and to whom are they given? To what extent are compensation increases based upon cost of living, revenue increases, the state’s increased/decreased pension contribution vs. the employer’s increased/decreased pension contribution, the performance of the district (if at all)? To whom do these increases go and how has that been determined? I am not suggesting what the principles of negotiation should be nor that the current principles are unacceptable, but rather stating that the principles used by the district in negotiations are unclear.
Given that we have just received a parcel tax from the public, I believe that we need to justify spending decisions more than in previous years. Given that that parcel tax will actually only last for four years, I believe that we need to have a well thought out plan before making a decision that has a total fiscal impact on the district of 1.2 M by 2018-19, approximately the cost of increasing class size by one. We have a responsibility to the public to consider very carefully any impact to the budget that could result in another class size increase and to weigh it more carefully than we have in the past. At this point, I do not believe that we have done so. After having received, from the public, a parcel tax whose significant purpose is to maintain reasonable class size, I would not be comfortable increasing class sizes again simply because we gave a compensation increase without seriously considering both the long term the positive and negative impacts of doing so.
Suggested action items:
1. The board develops principles to guide the district in its negotiation. (consideration given to but not limited to recruitment, retention, morale, reward, cost of living increase, results/output)
2. If the board decides that recruitment/retention is in fact a guiding principle, then the district should provide the board with some retention and recruitment data (beyond just comparables); the district should provide data that shows us that the negotiation itself was intentional and deliberate for the purpose of attracting and retaining the desired teaching staff.
3. The district analyzes the range of total compensation among its represented employees (beyond simply step and column) and informs us of how the disparity aligns with the guiding principles.
4. The board discusses and names its priorities, from which its spending decisions should result. While the strategic direction sets a vision, given the recent passage of a parcel tax and the recent addition of new board members, the board needs to set priorities in our public meeting.
5. The board provides an opportunity for the community to provide input before setting these priorities. Ideally, there would be a way for members of the public to do this in a way that protects anonymity.
6. The district provides an opportunity for the professional educators to provide input to the board via the district. Ideally, teachers would also have a way to do so in a way that protects anonymity.
7. The district negotiates a contract with a smaller short term financial impact until the board has collectively discussed its priorities. (This prioritization conversation could begin at any time).
******************
What is the Board President trying to hide??????
“What is the Board President trying to hide?”
The fact that, as predicted, the board is going to piss away the money from the last parcel tax and come asking for even more. They’re NOT going to try to find a way to live within their budget as they claimed in order to get the last parcel tax passed. Guess what? Those that held their nose and passed the last one, hoping the board “got it” and would do their best to work within their budget aren’t going to vote for another one. In fact, I expect they will actively work against another parcel tax.
THE BOARD DOESN’T GET IT! They’ve been repeatedly beaten over the head and they refuse to understand that the majority of tax payers in this town that DON’T HAVE CHILDREN IN THE SCHOOLS are not going to be a never ending supply of money.
Why is the board granting the teachers raises? THEY’RE NOT GOING TO GO ANYWHERE! There is nowhere they can go and make more money. They’ve got a sweet deal and they continue to work the rubes on the board into giving them more money. I’m over it and so are most of the rest of the taxpayers in this city. Go ahead board, put up another parcel tax and watch what happens.
If the board wants to keep running this district this way they can damn well go ask the parents for more money. It’s not coming from me or the majority of us that don’t have children in the district and aren’t interested in paying for a private school education for other peoples children anymore. You want a private school education? Pay for it yourself.
Dear School Board: DO YOU EFFING GET IT NOW??????!!!!!! Never mind, I know you don’t.
It seems like a prerequisite to being on the school board is to be able to actually attend school board meetings. This is what, the third school boarding meeting Caroline Lucas has been AWOL from? It’s hard to take her seriously when she is using a member of the public as her mouthpiece/spokesperson. Why doesn’t she just post her thoughts on the Almanac website herself? Weird…
As I member of the MPCSD board, I was elected to represent the voters of Menlo Park and what they feel is best for our children and schools. I am available to meet with members of the public about any concerns, including meeting attendance. Arranging a time via school board email is the best venue to reach me.
As there are established protocols for communicating with the public (a published school board agenda/packet with supplemental documents on which members of the board may request to post), I will not be using blogs to post my opinions.
However, I ran on a platform of transparency and want the community to know why my input for this meeting was not made easily accessible to the public and why I was not in attendance.
Posting my input: Knowing I was unable to attend the June 13 meeting, I told the board president at the June 6 meeting that I would send my input regarding the contract approval. I prepared a letter to the board and requested for her publish it in the subsequent board meeting packet, thus making it accessible to the board and public, prior to the vote.
The board president elected not to publish my letter. I have expressed concern with this decision to both the board president and to the incoming superintendent, as I want the board to be as transparent as possible.
Meeting attendance: The board set the calendar for the year and different members had conflicts on various dates. I happened to have a conflict with the June 13 meeting and expressed so to the board. The board calendared the final meeting of the year on that date and with only ten days prior added the June 20 meeting. While being present is best, sharing input via a public venue is one way to communicate with the board and public in such situations and is what I attempted to do.
While any member of the public has been able/ can continue to request a copy of the letter directly from me, the public should know that it will be published, post facto, as a part of the minutes from June 20.
Evidently the School Board voted 4-0 for raises and then started the ball rolling for a new parcel tax.
This will all end tragically with a deficit budget, raises that cannot be paid for and a totally disgusted taxpayer community.
I have not yet had a chance to look at the video of last night’s meeting, but incoming Superintendent Erik Burmeister says that it is not true that the board “started the board rolling for a new parcel tax.”
“That is not true,” he said. “As we have discussed for a while, we will start a process in the fall of getting community feedback regarding future financial planning.” He said a parcel tax is “one of many solutions that exist. It wasn’t discussed in isolation and wasn’t discussed in terms of starting any ball rolling.”
Here is a link to watch the video of the meeting.
https://vimeo.com/222542669
Barbara
“…and then started the ball rolling for a new parcel tax”
Did you just completely fabricate this Peter to fit your negative narrative towards MPCSD?
Between Peter making stuff up about the intentions of the school board and Caroline not even being present on the school board when crucial issues are discussed, it’s becoming really hard to take you two seriously….
Interesting to see the Almanac flacking for the School Board.
Look at the 13 June School Board meeting at 02:14 and you will see the Board telling staff to get the ball rolling because “the 4 years is going to go by like that so….” and then again at 02:28.
You decide.
Why not just put another parcel tax on the ballot?
Looks like on the June 13th board video (2:29:00), Terry is directing Eric to look into suggested timing and community engagement process for a future parcel tax in the first third of the next school year and report back to the board. That seems pretty plan forward the intent to come out sooner than later with yet ANOTHER parcel tax.
Here is a link to the video – https://vimeo.com/221650790
It is to bad that the board only sees one way to make their budget work – keep going for more taxes. Adding $1.2 million in salary and benefit increases with the approval of the teacher unions contract only ties their hands even further.
I thought that during the last parcel tax discussion everyone agreed that this was a shared issue. The Tax Payers would be asked to approve a smaller parcel tax – Done, The District would reduce its budget by a similar amount – Seems to be keeping its promise, but the teacher union feels entitled to a 5% raise over two years after getting a raise last year and a one time payout. Something seem out of sorts here.
Peter Carpenter – What I am attempting to do is to prevent our website from being used to disseminate “fake news.” It is part of my job.
The video clips of the June 13 meeting, which I did attend in its entirety, to which Mr. Carpenter is referring are a) a discussion by the board about a committee’s recommendation to create a reserve for long-term pension obligations (they decided not to do it at this time) and b) a comment by a member of the public speaking about the budget and specifically about the decision to increase class sizes.
At no time during this meeting did the board as a whole give direction to any district employees to begin the process of putting a parcel tax on the ballot.
Fact -On 13 June the Board voted to increase all four existing parcel taxes by the maximum amount allowed.
Fact – Last night the Board approved a new contract which will absorb all of the funds provided by the latest parcel taxes.
Fact – The unfunded pension liability of the District overwhelms any reserves.
Fact – Those pension costs will increase dramatically over the next three years.
Opinion – Another parcel tax is inevitable unless the Board reduces its current total payroll.
Watch the videos yourself.
Barbara. It looks like you walked out of the meeting at 2:21:11. Maybe you came back in and did not walk past the camera but Terry’s request to Eric was at 2:29:00 and although technically it did not say look into a parcel tax, I am not sure why you would want a recommendation on process and timing on community engagement less than a year into the new parcel tax unless you were considering another parcel tax sooner than later. Now maybe they want to be fully transparent and spend a couple of year evaluating public input – one can only hope.
The district seems to be slowly bleeding even with the last parcel tax. They are already dipping into the reserves to keep the boat afloat. Not a way to manage your financial house. I don’t know of to many other public agencies that manage their budgets this way. It is one thing for a year here and their because of unforeseen issues or during an economic downturn but neither are the case at this point in time. It is hard to justify raises when you are slowing going into the red.
“Why not just put another parcel tax on the ballot?”
Because they just passed a parcel tax. It was passed due to the assurances of the board that everyone would participate in balancing the budget. As was predicted by me and others, the teachers union wants a raise that will eat up all of the increased funding provided by the most recent parcel tax. Also, we already pay too much in parcel taxes to the school as it is. I’m not interested in paying more.
As Aaron suggested above, the board should investigate a merger with other school districts to reduce the management overhead and provide more funds to actually teaching. It is totally absurd to have this amount of administrative staff for just 4 schools. A merger with Las Lomitas could redirect the salaries of at least 14 administrators to programs and teaching that benefit the students.
I’m not against future parcel taxes if they are really needed. But I do object to the method of approving these tax increases. There seems to be a lack of transparency as to how the money is to be spent, and the elections are timed to eliminate any negative votes. Why do these elections always happen near the end of the school year as opposed to the general election in November where the majority of citizens vote?
“Why do these elections always happen near the end of the school year as opposed to the general election in November where the majority of citizens vote?
It’s on purpose. Just as the prior board tried a stealth vote for the parcel tax before the last, they don’t want the majority of voters that will normally go to the polls voting on parcel taxes. They know they can’t justify their demand and that, unlike an off date election, many voters that are paying attention will go to the polls and vote no. When that happens the board loses becasue they can’t justify their ask.
They told us with the last parcel tax vote that everyone would “share the pain.” Is everyone? NO! The teachers were just given a 5% raise by the board, eating up all of the added money from the last parcel tax. Where’s the sharing? Now, as predicted, the board is going to have to put forward yet another parcel tax.
“Where’s Caroline?”
Come on Terry. Stop it.
At this point all I can think is that a subset of Almanac commenters have some sort of personal vendetta against MPCSD. Nothing else explains their unrelenting accusations, insinuations, and spreading of misinformation and falsehoods. I used to be a regular reader of Almanac Online, but now I only visit the website every few months, is that. These constant attacks against MPCSD are so ridiculous and crazy-making that I can’t stand to read them any more. My peace of mind and grounding in the real world are more valuable to me than keeping abreast of what’s going on in the lala land tinfoil-hat world of some of the regulars in these comment threads.
This whole thing seems pretty straight forward to me since most of the budget is in salaries and benefits (of which pension benefits are also a function of salaries) and could be resolved with neither layoffs nor class size increases. The entire 2021/2022 deficit equates to about 1.3% annualized on the current $31.53m salary base. With the above mentioned salary scale increases on top of step increases far exceeding 1.3%, the district simply needs to throttle back salary increases and the problem is easily corrected. Keep in mind that during this same period, state and district combined pension matching is ramping up to 27% of annual salary. For reference, the private sector average 401k match is 2.7%, so district employees are receiving a benefit 10X as large as the rest of us. Total compensation is increasing dramatically even if raises were to be throttled back to balance the budget. Meanwhile, employee pension contributions are only ramping to about 10.3%. This compares with a private sector 401k contribution in excess of 16% for someone making a SC county average salary and maxing out their 401k (avg salary is lower in SM County, making this percentage higher). As a ratio of employer/employee retirement contribution, MPCSD employees have a >16X advantage over those in the private sector. And that’s before we include the effect of teachers being exempted from social security tax. Think about that for a second when the district makes claims about employee retention. The reality is teachers are more than fairly compensated at MPCSD and retention is unlikely to be impacted by slowing the rate of salary growth. I would appreciate it if the board would represent the electorate and start making data-driven decisions when it deals on our behalf with the teachers union (as opposed to, for example, approving salary scale increases without any budgetary basis, then seeking community input on another parcel tax when property tax revenue is already increasing at a rate in excess of 6%.
Told you so.
This board is just as bad as before. The parcel tax will be spent on raises for staff and they will cry they need more money.
Once again they have chosen not to listen to the public and show no fiscal responsibility at all. Not learning from their mistakes, which are numerous, will spell disaster for the district. In the end this was expected. Don’t be led down this path again by false promises, clearly the arrogance and lack of foresight continues to hinder this board
Told you so
“At this point all I can think is that a subset of Almanac commenters have some sort of personal vendetta against MPCSD”
Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are a number of us who carefully watch the budget vs the revenues vs the projected pension costs and realize that the current financial model simply will not work. We want to save our schools from a predictable financial disaster.
Peter it seems like you are rallying the anti-MPCSD talk to get away from the highlighting of the negative light in the last six months on the Fire Department whose Board you lead. Just my opinion though.
Looks to me like Ms Lucas is taking direction from 45 re attendance. Perhaps this is our new political norm? Ms Lucas has missed 3 meetings since she was elected only 6 months ago…is this what her voters wanted/expected?
Don’t forget, Peter Carpenter was the single biggest contributor to Caroline Lucas’ campaign…
https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2016/10/11/menlo-park-district-school-board-candidates-file-campaign-finance-reports
Deflect – Not a problem – the Fire District has a well balanced budget, has carefully saved reserves for building new stations, replacing apparatus, pension obligations and has no parcel tax and no construction bonds. The District is a leader in innovation and measures every emergency response against a Board established response time.
“At this point all I can think is that a subset of Almanac commenters have some sort of personal vendetta against MPCSD. ”
Quite the contrary. I expect, no, DEMAND responsible management of the taxes I pay to support the school district. I have yet to see it. It is just more of the same year after year; poor mouth to the voters, “we need more money, please pass our parcel tax.” Voter pass the tax, the board gives it to the teachers and a few years later the board is back asking for more money AGAIN. And again, and again, and again. That is most assuredly NOT responsible financial management I am tired of it. And so are many other taxpayers in this city.
I want our schools to be of good quality, after all it affects my property value, BUT I’m not willing to pay never ending increases in taxes to do so. Especially when there are ways to deal with the financial issues facing the district WITHOUT raising taxes.
I didn’t vote for this last parcel tax because I knew what has happened would happen. The teachers wouldn’t commit to not demanding raises. The tax got passed and teachers asked for raises. Then teh board IRRESPONSIBLY
CONTINUING
granted the teachers raises. These are raises they din’t need to give for teacher retention. The teachers already make more than any other local district. Where would they go? Also, the raise just making the pending pension crisis even larger. I’m sorry, but it wasn’t just irresponsible, it was STUPID.
Thank your Where’s Caroline I did not know that Peter Carpenter was Caroline Lucas’s largest donor. I guess that was not transparent. Is not attending meetings to a Board you were elected to considered being transparent?
“I did not know that Peter Carpenter was Caroline Lucas’s largest donor. I guess that was not transparent.”
My support was totally transparent and fully and publicly reported. I committed (in this very Forum) to supporting anyone who was willing to challenge the status quo and Caroline was the only one with the guts to accept that challenge.
I for one support our schools, but for transparency’s sake.
Could we get a list of each admin. position and the salary including benefits.
Menlo Park City Elementary (San Mateo County)
This entity did not file a report with the State Controller’s Office.
An entity that did not file is one that has not provided a compensation report to the Controller.
“Transparency” is such an interesting word in civic culture. I’ve observed recently a lot of community stakeholders in Menlo Park expect that information will be presented to them, in a format they can digest, at a time when they’re paying attention.
I gather that the school district has been more secretive in the past, but in general, most information is out there for people who seek it. Meetings are public, with published agendas and minutes and video recordings. The city holds input sessions and publicizes them in half a dozen different ways. Candidates have to submit donation reports and they are usually published in the Almanac. School district salaries are published (just google the name of your kid’s teacher and you’ll find it). All you have to do is look.
Here, for example, are school district salaries. Looks like the report is missing 2016.
http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/school-districts/san-mateo/menlo-park-city-elementary/
Would you invest in a business that was projecting deficits, had an expiring line of credit (i.e. parcel tax) and was increasing its burn rate by giving its employees salary increases that also increases its pension liabilities?
MPCSD’s “business model” is broken – there is no future without a new line of credit (parcel taxes) and the banks (the taxpayers) are not interested in making another loan.
The ONLY way out is to significantly reduce the total payroll costs by either salary reductions or layoffs.
Posted by Peter Carpenter
a resident of Atherton: Lindenwood
on Feb 5, 2016 at 8:45 pm
Peter Carpenter is a registered user.
The next time there is an election for the MPCSD Board I pledge $5000 to support a well qualified candidate who is an independent, concerned citizen willing to represent the interests of all the taxpayers of the school district.
The Board should serve the entire community not just the interests of parents of current students or the teachers or the administration.
We all pay for the schools and we should all be represented on the Board.
*****
Is that transparent enough?
Peter, you don’t speak for the taxpayers of Menlo Park. In fact, 4 out of 5 people who voted in the last parcel tax election voted to approve Measure X. So I’m having a hard time understanding how you assert that taxpayers are “not interested in making another loan.”
It’s my opinion that many taxpayers see the parcel taxes they’ve already approved, as an investment in Menlo Park City Schools, an investment in their community, and an investment the future. Having strong publicly funded schools that do an AMAZING job of educating children, and drive up property values, is important to many people in Menlo Park.
Time, and not Peter Carpenter, will only tell if the Menlo Park community will approve another parcel tax, IF MPCSD even chooses to put one on a future ballot.
“Would you invest in a business that was projecting deficits?”
. And to answer your question Peter, lets not forget that YOU publicly supported Measure X in March, even as MPCSD projected completely running out of money in 2018/19 without the passage of a parcel tax.
” Having strong publicly funded schools that do an AMAZING job of educating children, and drive up property values, is important to many people in Menlo Park.”
Yes, but not if we continually have to increase our funding of those schools due to irresponsible or incompetent financial management. Maybe you have a never ending supply of money, but most of us don’t. An expectation of a never ending supply of money is how the district has been operating.
“Peter, lets not forget that YOU publicly supported Measure X in March, even as MPCSD projected completely running out of money in 2018/19 without the passage of a parcel tax.”
Yes I did on the assumption/hope that the Board would take the steps necessary to stop the hemorrhaging. That has not happened.
My rhetorical question was laden with cynicism and disbelief that we already are back to where we were pre Measure X. Like most concerned citizens in our city, I supported it in a leap of faith that the funds would be used to solve the financial woes of the District. But the fact that we already – mere months after the measure passed – are talking about further financial troubles proves that tax grabs are not a solution and cannot happen again. I ardently will oppose any future requests to entrust my hard earned tax dollars with irrresponsible bureaucrats.