Beverly Hills Cuts Begin After Slim Parcel Tax Defeat : Elections: Proponents hope a recount will reverse the six-vote loss. But district officials have started to make trims.

Beverly Hills school district and teachers union officials are clinging to the hope that a recount of the school tax vote will give them the six votes they need to claim victory.

But with semiofficial results showing that the measure failed, they geared up for the worst and began implementing staff and program cuts.

“I think we’re close enough that (there is) the possibility the recount can be successful in our favor,” said Ara Prigian, executive director of Westside Teachers United, a branch of the California Teachers Assn. “If we were 50 or 75 votes away, it would be a snowball’s chance in hell.”

The parcel tax measure, Proposition B on the June 5 Beverly Hills municipal ballot, collected 6,814 yes votes, or 66.6%, elections officials announced this week. Votes against the proposed tax numbered 3,416, or 33.39%. The assessment needed approval by two-thirds of the voters--or 6,820--to pass.

All of the ballots have been counted, and the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office is now “re-verifying our figures,” spokeswoman Marcia Ventura said. The county will certify the results June 26 and report them to the secretary of state, whose certification makes them official.

School district officials and leaders of the pro-tax campaign said they would call for a recount. A recount, which can be requested from June 26 though July 2, must start no more than seven days after the request is filed, Ventura said.

The levy would raise about $4.5 million a year for the Beverly Hills Unified School District. Residential and commercial land parcels in the city would be assessed between $250 to $750 annually for the next five years, depending on their size and use.

The tax was a major civic cause in Beverly Hills, with the City Council, Chamber of Commerce and television stars rallying behind it. About 53% of the city’s registered voters turned out for the election, compared to a statewide turnout of 39%.

Without the assessment, proponents said, the hallmark school district was in danger of becoming ordinary. Its apparent failure means teachers will lose a 3% pay raise for the coming school year, which was negotiated during the teachers’ strike last fall but made contingent on passage of the tax. The raise, on top of a guaranteed 7% pay increase, was aimed at keeping teacher salaries competitive with those in Los Angeles schools.

Also on the chopping block are 48 of the district’s 300 teachers, nurses, counselors and librarians, including two of the three nurses and all elementary school music teachers and computer specialists. The Academic Decathlon program and several advanced placement and performing arts courses will also be axed.

This week, the district and the teachers union were grappling over the casualties and the shuffling of faculty. A music teacher, for instance, might be reassigned to teach a class other than music if he or she is qualified, Prigian said.

Fifteen teachers who were issued layoff notices last month have been called back to replace teachers who are retiring, Supt. Robert French said. A few more slots may open at the end of the month, when teachers are due to notify the district whether they intend to return next school year, he said.

But, he said, “We have not added back any programs that were cut.”

Teachers slated for layoff, most of whom had been waiting out the election, will begin job hunting in earnest next week when summer vacation begins, Prigian said.

Some teachers decided not to pack up their books but to gamble on the recount, Prigian said. “They’re going to stick it out as long as possible, but you’re talking about people’s livelihood,” he said.

In the last few months, three or four teachers accepted positions elsewhere, rather than deal with the uncertainty of the tax election, Prigian said.

District administrators say that without the parcel tax money, they will have to cut costs by 10% for the coming year, to about $30 million. Their financial difficulties, they say, stem from a 1976 state Supreme Court decision that required the state to equalize funding among districts and Proposition 13’s limit on property taxes. Before, most money for schools came from local property taxes. Now, most of it is allocated by the state based on enrollment.

The district has other revenue sources, including a generous payment from the city of Beverly Hills for the use of school facilities. School board President Frank Fenton this week asked the Beverly Hills City Council to give the $4.9 million this fiscal year in one lump sum next month rather than in the usual quarterly installments. With the interest earned, estimated at up to $146,000, three teachers’ jobs could be saved, he said at the City Council meeting.

The council agreed, provided that lawyers deem it legal and that the parcel tax definitely loses. “Three teachers are better than none,” Councilman Max Salter said.

Pro-tax leaders are also considering challenges to the balloting, said Bernard Nebenzahl, co-chairman of the Yes on Schools Committee. Some wording about the tax rate in the sample ballot was confusing, he said.

But the anti-tax forces accused the tax proponents of dragging their feet. The results are in and “it’s idiocy” to fish for an opposite ending, said Sherman Kulick, chairman of Beverly Hills Citizens for Cost-Effective Quality Education. “We won. It’s over and done with.”

Kulick’s group campaigned on a platform of tax revolt and back to basics in education, saying the school district’s curriculum is padded with frills. He said Beverly Hills spends almost $6,000 per pupil annually, more than any other district in Los Angeles County. School districts in other affluent communities, such as San Marino and La Canada, spend less per student, yet their students score as well as or better than Beverly Hills students on standardized tests, he said.

Tax supporters argued that Beverly Hills has smaller classes and more foreign languages and advanced placement courses than other districts. The diversity and depth of offerings is what draws many parents to the city, they said.

Kulick, however, contends that “everybody’s been brainwashed” into thinking that Beverly Hills schools must stand apart. “I believe that . . . they will not make any substantial reductions,” he said. “They’re not going to address the major problem” of spending beyond their means.

“It’s just the same old baloney,” he said.

During the district’s last parcel tax attempt in 1987, school officials warned of dire consequences if that tax were defeated, Kulick said. The tax garnered 59% of the vote, short of the two-thirds needed, and the schools were not destroyed, he said.

But district administrators say that when the 1987 tax failed, the district had reserves to draw on. Now, they say, the coffers are empty.

The pro-tax Yes on Schools Committee plans to go ahead with a thank-you bash tonight for teachers, parents and campaign volunteers. “You can’t point fingers, say, ‘You should’ve done this, you didn’t do this,’ ” said Nebenzahl.

“As long as I know there’s a breath of an opportunity . . . for this thing to go yes, then I’m upbeat,” he said.