Beverly Hills Again Seeks Parcel Tax : Education: Plan to boost school funds has failed twice, but officials say the situation is so dire that they have no choice.

Is it “Three strikes and you’re out?” Or “The third time’s the charm?”

Beverly Hills schools supporters are hoping that it’s the latter as they try for a third time to obtain voter approval of a tax that would benefit the schools.

Last June, a parcel tax proposal fell just four votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority needed for approval. Parcels of land in the city would have been assessed $250 to $750 a year, depending on their size and use. In 1987, a proposed flat-fee tax of $270 per parcel fell far short of approval, with a 59% “yes” vote.

Last week, the board of the Beverly Hills Unified School District passed a resolution to put a parcel tax on the June 4 ballot. The tax, virtually identical to the proposal that was rejected last year, would bring in about $4.3 million a year for five years.

The third attempt puts Beverly Hills in a select group. Only the Lake Tahoe area’s Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District has voted more than twice to push through a parcel tax. And the San Marino Unified School District will vote a third time later this year.

War and recession notwithstanding, school district officials and their allies insist that they came so close to success last time, and the consequences of not obtaining new money are so dire, that the district has no choice.

After last year’s tax failed, Beverly Hills laid off 41 teachers and dozens of other employees. At Beverly Hills High School, German and astronomy classes were eliminated and other courses were reduced. In all, $2.5 million in expenses were cut to bring this year’s budget to $28.6 million. Teachers also lost a 3% pay raise for the 1990-91 school year that was contingent on passage of the tax.

The district projects a $1.3-million deficit for 1991-92 school year.

If the tax passes, it will spare the schools from further cutbacks that would have to be made before the new school year begins in September, said parent Anneli Roth, a member of the Yes on Schools Committee’s executive committee.

“We don’t want to see those teachers go, we don’t want to see those programs go,” she said. Voters may be tired of hearing “parcel tax,” but Roth said holding off until November’s election or later is “too late.”

The budget cutting already done will persuade people to vote yes this time, tax supporters hope. “Last June was prior to the cuts. Now we’re in the midst of them. People see the consequences even more,” said school board member Dana Tomarken.

Several parents and students testified on those consequences at last week’s board meeting. A.J. Willmer said that when his 7-year-old daughter, Dejah, broke her arm at school, there was no nurse on duty. Two nurses in the district were laid off last year after the tax failed in June, leaving one nurse for the district’s five schools.

Many of the obstacles that the tax proponents faced last time remain. Statewide, parcel tax elections have only a 36% success rate. And the makeup of the Beverly Hills electorate appears to make the city a particularly tough place to sell such a tax.

The city has a large contingent of elderly voters and residents with no school-age children, who are more likely to oppose a school tax. An unusually high proportion of parents--by some estimates, 40%--are recent immigrants, particularly from Iran, who are not yet eligible to vote.

Meanwhile, most of the teachers, who have campaigned for the parcel taxes, cannot vote because they live outside the district. Only about 10% of the teachers live in Beverly Hills, the city of the $750,000 fixer-upper.

But Tomarken said, “We got 66.6% last June, knowing all that, with the same realities.”

Some skeptics, however, suggest that tax advocates will be hard-pressed to sell the issue any more energetically than they did last year. The Yes on Schools Committee spent about $157,000, or about $23 for each yes vote, in 1990. The campaign featured star-studded rallies, T-shirts, glossy pamphlets and targeted mailers. Opponents of the tax, formed into the Beverly Hills Citizens for Cost-Effective Quality Education, spent about $500.

The pro-tax forces are not yet saying what kind of campaign will be launched this year, but they defend last year’s expenditures.

“I don’t think we should ever be embarrassed for fighting for education, ever,” Tomarken said.

A $15,000 survey of the community, conducted in December and January, shows that voters will support the tax, Tomarken said. District officials and Yes Committee members refused to give details of the findings.

Based on the survey, the Yes executive committee unanimously recommended a third attempt. “Even with having done it two times before, the survey definitely left us with the feeling that there was support out there,” said Roth, whose son attends Beverly Hills High School.

In the several months preceding the school board’s vote to try the tax again, some supporters suggested that it would be prudent to pare the amounts or exempt senior citizens from the tax instead of simply trying again with a proposal almost identical to last year’s. Tomarken defended the tax structure, citing the deficit that the district is facing.

“Last time, the dollar amount (of the tax) wasn’t the issue.” The issue, she said, “was four votes.”

One modification in this year’s measure is a variable assessment on apartments, depending on size. Last year’s proposal taxed all parcels with apartments $650, but duplex owners protested that they should not be charged the same as owners of larger apartments. With the change, proponents hope to pick up the extra votes they need.

Another difference is that the June election is a special one, whereas last year’s coincided with a statewide primary. A lower turnout is thus likely this year, but tax supporters say that they don’t know whether that will help or hurt their cause.

If approved, the tax would be levied starting July 1 at the following annual rates:

* Condominiums--$250 per unit.

* Single family parcels--Less than 9,999 square feet in land area, $350 per parcel; 10,000-19,999 square feet, $500; 20,000 square feet or more, $650.

* Multiple-family parcels--Less than four units, $450 per parcel; four to eight units, $600; nine or more units, $750.

* Commercial properties--Less than 10,000 square feet, $650; more than 10,000 square feet, $750.

There is not yet any organized opposition to the tax. Tax opponents last year ran a very low-key campaign urging a return to basics in education and contending that the district was living beyond its means.

All school districts, meanwhile, are anticipating a reduction in state money. Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed suspending Proposition 98 funding and giving no cost-of-living increase to school districts in the coming fiscal year, which would cost the Beverly Hills schools more than $700,000, district officials said.

The district also has to pay $250,000 to Los Angeles County under a new state law that allows counties to bill school districts for property tax collection.

About two-thirds of Beverly Hills’ and other districts’ funding comes from the state and is based on enrollment. Beverly Hills also gets money from the city--$5 million this year, for the use of school facilities. The City Council is investigating how to give another $250,000 this year to help bail out the district and is expected to vote on the plan Tuesday.

The Beverly Hills tax advocates look with envy at the nearby Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, where voters have twice approved taxes of $58 per parcel, and topped that last November by passing--with a 74% yes vote--a $75-million bond measure to repair the decaying campuses.

“They should bottle their success,” Tomarken said. She added that the Santa Monica district has more parcels than Beverly Hills, which allowed it to seek a smaller tax.

Statewide, eight school districts, including Beverly Hills and San Marino, have tried parcel tax elections twice and had them lose twice. The San Marino school board recently voted to put a property tax increase on the June ballot.

“We really have to keep trying. To become complacent about education is really not what Beverly Hills is all about,” Tomarken said.

Nor, apparently, is it what Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District is about. After three parcel taxes failed, on the fourth try, in 1989, voters there approved a tax of $48.

Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this story.