Schools Want Rebates : Taxpayers Asked to Share Windfall

A public opinion poll this fall found that 62% of California’s taxpayers think the $1.1-billion state surplus should be going to public schools, instead of being rebated to them. The opinion presumably reflected the willingness of the 62% to turn over their own shares, if they were given an opportunity.

Now that the tax rebate checks are going out, schools in the South Bay and throughout the state are eager to give them that opportunity.

The windfall for education--assuming that 62% of taxpayers contribute their shares of the total rebate decreed under the Gann limit on government spending--should come to a tidy $682 million.

To help ensure that good intentions are fulfilled, the schools are sending reminders to taxpayers in their areas.

In the South Bay, the letters also include reminders that the schools are suffering financially and that rebate contributions qualify as charitable deductions for taxpayers who itemize their personal expenses.

Nick Parras, superintendent of the Redondo Beach City School District, said his 3,800-student elementary system has been hammered with all the woes of declining enrollment--a plight shared by many other South Bay districts.

When districts lose students--Redondo used to have 10,300--they also lose state aid based on average daily attendance, Parras pointed out. And despite school closings and massive layoffs, the Redondo district finds itself in an unending struggle between balancing budgets and maintaining good programs for local students, he said.

Parras said the battle worsened this year when Redondo received only a 0.8% increase in state aid, far below the increased cost of operating the system. Some other districts got up to 4%, which included allowances for more students, urban congestion, high percentages of welfare families and other factors not figured in Redondo’s portion.

So to balance its $11-million budget this year, Parras said, the Redondo district had to dig into its reserves and reduce programs, particularly in library books and services.

“We’re hoping that people who want to see these programs restored for the children will consider contributing their rebates,” he said.

With the blessing of the school board, the district has sent letters home with the students, asking parents to contribute their rebates, and a citywide mailing is planned next week, Parras said.

With Christmas, taxes and this and that coming up, he said, a percentage of the 62% may have second thoughts when their checks--an average of $100 per taxpayer--arrive.

“Taxpayers have their problems, too,” Parras said. “But we will be very appreciative of anything they can do to help us out.”

Ann Gallagher, president of the Torrance school board, is among those who expect the 62% to stand behind the view they expressed in the statewide poll.

“It’s time for each of us to literally put our money where our mouth is and support our schools,” she said. “We can no longer depend upon someone else to do it.”

To set the right example, Gallagher and other school, city and community leaders have publicly pledged to write: “Pay to the order of the Torrance Unified School District,” on their rebate checks.

Gallagher estimates that there are about 100,000 taxpayers in Torrance, so if the average rebate is $100 and 62% keep the pledge, the district’s $60-million budget should be augmented by $6.2 million.

“That is the financial support we are seeking,” she said, after reminding Torrance taxpayers of the “devastating” effect of $1.4 million in school program and staff cuts this year. She pledged that the converted rebate money won’t be dumped in a general fund, but will be used “in a highlighted and special manner” for textbooks, supplies, equipment and other specific school needs.

Most South Bay districts are leaving it up to their PTAs or community support groups to reach out and snare those rebate checks before they vanish into personal bank accounts.

The Centinela Valley Education Foundation is handling the appeal for the Centinela Valley Union High School District and its four feeder elementary systems--Hawthorne, Lawndale, Lennox and Wiseburn.

Centinela Valley high school district Supt. McKinley Nash said letters from the foundation offer donors the option of contributing to a specific school or to the general needs of any of the agencies. PTA organizations are handling the appeals for the South Bay Union High School District and other systems, and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, letters were sent out last week by the Peninsula Education Foundation.

“Politics in Sacramento kept the money from going to education in the first place and the poll shows that most people understand that,” said Nancy Mahr, a spokeswoman for the Peninsula school district. “We believe taxpayers will take advantage of this opportunity to correct the mistake.”

State schools Supt. Bill Honig, in a letter to the districts urging them to go after the rebates, said some among the 62% might think they can fulfill the pledge merely by sending their checks back to the state government.

Such donors, Honig said, should be “strongly discouraged” from doing that, even if they attach a note saying the returned money should be spent on schools.

He said Sacramento politicians will see the rebate money in the education fund and likely just reduce next year’s school allocations by an equal amount. The net gain, he said: Zero.

State Controller Gray Davis expects to complete the mailing of tax rebates by Jan. 15.