Few Answering Schools’ Plea for Tax Checks

Back in May, during yet another battle between state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and Gov. George Deukmejian over money for education, the schools chief challenged taxpayers to give up “the short-term gratification of a night on the town or a few cartons of cigarettes” that a state income tax rebate might buy and let public schools have the money instead.

Now that individual rebate checks are finally going out in the mail, school districts around the state have begun their pitches for the checks, sending notes home to parents, advertising in local newspapers and mobilizing PTA phone trees to solicit the money. In San Francisco, a radio station has broadcast daily appeals for the refunds, promising to turn them over to Bay Area schools.

But an informal sampling by The Times of some Southern California school districts shows that only a trickle of the $30 million that has gone to taxpayers since Nov. 1 has ended up with the schools.

For example, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest, has received about 90 small checks totaling $3,973. Beverly Hills, which is pushing to raise $100,000, has done somewhat better, netting $7,000 as of Friday. In Orange County, the Orange Unified School District has received less than 20 checks, a total of $650. Laguna Beach Unified as of Friday had received none--despite a “phonathon” and newspaper advertisement.

Spending Limit

A total of $1.1 billion will be refunded to taxpayers by Jan. 15. The rebate was the result of the Gann initiative, which placed a limit on state spending and said that revenues left over should be returned to taxpayers.

Taxpayers who have signed over their checks have indicated strong--and quite specific--reasons for doing so.

“What kind of idiot Legislature and governor would vote on returning money to Californians instead of putting it into our school system?” wrote a Hollywood woman, who said she has no children, in a letter accompanying the $32 check she returned to the state controller’s office in Sacramento. “I for one would gladly refund my refund to you to put towards improving our lousy school system.”

Another Los Angeles woman wrote on the back of her $32.53 check, endorsed to the Los Angeles district: “I am very sorry the governor didn’t give the money to education where so much is needed.”

A Beverly Hills man who gave his $64 check to the Los Angeles district said he wanted the money to be spent on “teaching English to immigrants or geography to elementary school children.” Two donors to the Irvine Unified School District designated $20 for science instruction and $44 for textbooks. That district has received a total of $1,486.

No-Win Situation

Some districts have received little or no money, however, in part because they have not asked for it. Other school administrators see the rebate program as a no-win situation.

“If we get a lot of checks or we get no checks . . . the schools lose,” said Supt. J. Michael McGrath of the Newhall School District, where five checks totaling $160 have come in, even though officials have not encouraged donations. “It’s much like the lottery,” which school officials say has given the public the false impression that schools are rolling in money.

“People will say, ‘You’ve got all those rebates. You don’t need much money.’ Then if very little comes in, the governor’s supporters will say they were right all along, that parents don’t think the schools need the money,” he said.

A rebate donation drive “could become an awful test of popularity,” said Michael Fallon, a spokesman for the California School Boards Assn., explaining why some districts have been reluctant to mount campaigns for the funds.

But officials in districts that have garnered rebate money say they welcome more checks, and they expect larger amounts to flow in before the end of the year.

As of last week, only half of the 12 million rebate checks had been issued, mainly smaller checks to lower-income people, according to state Controller Gray Davis’ office. Legislation signed by the governor in September provided for a rebate of $32 to $118 for single people and $64 to $272 for couples.

“We figure that most of the donations will come from those people who can better afford it and they, by and large, haven’t received their rebate checks yet,” said Norma Trost, a spokeswoman for the 116,000-student San Diego Unified School District, where only a handful of checks have been turned in.

Federal Taxes

The rebate checks are subject to federal income taxes, though not to state income taxes. Donations are deductible from both federal and state taxes for people who itemize deductions, according to the state controller’s office.

Some taxpayers interviewed by The Times were not aware of efforts to collect rebate donations for the schools but said they probably would not have turned over their checks anyway.

“If I had never seen the money, they could have kept it,” said Bill Ryan, a West Los Angeles advertising executive. “But now that I have the check in my hand, I want to spend it.”

Ryan, whose wife is expecting their first child, said he planned to use the money to help pay for adding a room to their house.

Kathi Colvin, a parent in the Los Angeles school district, said she had not considered donating her refund to public education because she did not know she could give it directly to the school of her choice.

“I am not going to give it to L.A. Unified,” she said. “There is so much waste in the district, and money does not filter down to the child. I would give it directly to the school but not to the district.”

Like Los Angeles, many districts in Orange County set up special trust accounts to hold rebate donations. The Anaheim City School District also sent letters to parents about the account.

So far, Superintendent Meliton Lopez said, “Only one parent has signed over a check to us, for $64.” But, he said, “Based on the number of people who urged us to (solicit checks), we expect more money to come in.”

Advisory Memo

The state Department of Education has sanctioned the donation drive, although Honig emphasized in an interview Friday that it is not an organized statewide effort. The department sent out an advisory memo in October, urging districts that were interested in soliciting the money to set up special trust accounts and keep track of how the money is used.

The letter also advised districts to inform parents that they can sign over their checks directly to a particular school, as well as designate how they want the money to be used.

It also urged districts to spread the word that taxpayers should not return their checks to the state controller or to the Education Department because the checks could be counted against money already in the general education budget, rather than creating additional money for the schools.

Despite attempts to discourage refund recipients from returning checks to the state, the controller’s office has received about $2,800 in rebates.

Districts either have special addresses for sending in rebate checks or have foundations that are collecting the money. People are advised to contact their local school district to find out how to turn over their checks.

The governor last week criticized school districts that are going after the money, suggesting that they do not need it and might squander it on such things as higher salaries for administrators and teachers.

Offset Reductions

Dismayed by Deukmejian’s comments, Honig said public schools need the money to help offset the reductions many districts made as a result of inadequate state funding this year. The schools chief had opposed the rebates, arguing that the public schools were shortchanged by $700 million in the governor’s 1987-88 budget and deserved the funds.

Had the $1.1-billion surplus been allocated to education, every California public school would have received an extra $150,000--enough to pay two teachers’ salaries or buy two textbooks per student in each school, according to Honig’s calculations.

Donating one’s tax refund to the schools “is a good symbolic gesture that shows you care about something other than yourself,” the schools chief said. “We should encourage that spirit in the state and not belittle it.”

Honig said he will turn his check over to his son’s junior high school in San Francisco.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Eric Bailey in San Diego, Deborah Wilkinson and Amy Mednick in Orange County and Lynn Steinberg in the San Fernando Valley.