Palmdale District Approves Plan for Tax on New Houses

Faced with spiraling enrollments and a shortage of state funds, the Palmdale School District has approved a plan to impose a hefty schools tax on up to 10,000 new homeowners.

The board of trustees of the 13,000-student Palmdale district voted 5 to 0 Tuesday night to approve a plan that would raise taxes on about half of the housing expected to be built within district boundaries. The developers who own the land must still agree to the tax in a Nov. 27 election, but most have already endorsed the proposal.

Under the tax plan, the typical homeowner could pay an extra $400 to $500 each year to start and gradually larger amounts over the years. Projections show the district could reap $40 million or more, which would be enough to build several new campuses.

But how fast school officials will get the extra money depends on how many of the homes are built and how soon, major questions given the current slump in the housing market.

The tax would be levied through the creation of a Mello-Roos district, which bypasses the voting electorate. Developers are being asked to approve the tax and then pass it on to buyers.

The tax district would cover nearly 2,400 acres, where about 10,300 homes are planned in the coming decade. That would make it the largest such district in the county that collects money for schools, officials said.

School officials originally proposed including in the tax district all the undeveloped residential land in their area, estimated at between 4,000 and 5,000 acres. But they decided to proceed now with only about half of that acreage, and to attempt to add the remaining land later.

District Supt. Forrest McElroy said the special tax is needed because state funding and fees paid by developers, which have traditionally paid for new schools, do not raise enough money for growing school districts such as Palmdale’s.

The district now gets a state-mandated developer fee of $1.17 per square foot for new housing built within its boundaries. Palmdale would get nearly twice that much money from projects built within the proposed tax district.