Analysts Decipher Lesson Behind Failed Attempt at School Tax : Aftermath: The recession, nervousness about possible state tax increases and the use of consultants played a part in the no vote, election experts say.

Mixed signals from Sacramento on proposed new taxes only served to confuse voters considering school parcel tax elections this week, such as the one that lost in the San Dieguito Union High School District, election analysts said Thursday.

Voters in the San Dieguito Union district, which covers Encinitas, Solana Beach, Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar and parts of Carlsbad, on Tuesday rejected a tax of $50-a-year per parcel to raise $2.5 million a year for five years.

The funds, school officials said, would go toward averting an expected $2.5-million budget deficit and the laying off of as many as 50 school employees.

“They weren’t asking for a lot of money, and it’s a bad sign when people won’t pay a dollar a week for their schools,” said Robert Meadow, a political consultant with San Diego-based Decision Research.

It’s a particularly bad sign since the San Dieguito district, which has had consistently high standardized test scores, covers an area generally considered to have an above-average standard of living and a solid history of community support for schools.

“Under the current environment, which includes the recession, the specter of substantial tax increases coming out of Sacramento and uncertainty over Proposition 13, I think it’s impossible to get a two-thirds vote for any tax measure, not just in San Diego County, but anywhere in the state,” said Tom Shepard, political consultant with the Primacy Group, which organized the San Dieguito Union High campaign.

“The day they went to vote, they read in the newspaper that there was a possibility that the Supreme Court would overturn Proposition 13,” Shepard said.

Of the five parcel tax elections held by school districts in Southern California, only one, in the San Marino Unified School District, received the two-thirds majority necessary for passage. Even Beverly Hills Unified School District failed to muster the votes to pass.

San Dieguito Union’s parcel tax garnered 52% of 16,419 votes cast, but also failed.

“The most important thing is the lingering anti-tax sentiment,” Meadow said. “People don’t like to have taxes tied to their property one way or the other.”

Confusion over the state’s own budget crisis also hurt school districts’ ballot hopes, said Kent Price, a consultant with Price Research, the only consulting firm in the country to specialize in school-funding elections.

“One day Sacramento says they’re going to raise the sales tax, another day they’re saying they’re raising the income tax, and it goes on . . . and that leads to a real undecided voter,” Price said.

“I’ve never seen so much ambivalence on the part of the voter . . . and ambivalence in a tax election leads to a no vote,” Price said. “They were just really confused about the future of the economy and the taxes, and I can hardly blame them.”

School districts in Northern California, however, fared much better, with three out of six parcel tax elections winning. Since 1983, parcel taxes in the state have had a passage rate of 41.5%.

“What (people in Northern California) were reacting to in part was the Richmond Unified ordeal. They saw their neighbor go bankrupt, and they don’t want to see their own school going under,” Price said.

The Richmond Unified School District in Contra Costa County, saddled with a $29-million deficit, last April became the second school district in state history to file for bankruptcy protection. Only a court order keeps schools in the district open, but Gov. Pete Wilson is fighting the order.

“It may take something like the Richmond School District failure for people to realize that, despite the fact that they are paying substantial property taxes, these districts are not adequately funded,” said Shepard, whose firm was paid $20,000 by San Dieguito Union to run the campaign.

The needs of the schools are not as visible to the average voter as other types of social needs, Meadow said.

“People can look at their back yard and see someone scurrying in the night, and they can see crime, but they can’t see the schools having problems because two-thirds of the people who vote don’t have kids in school,” Meadow said.

The loss by San Dieguito Union and others in the state may discourage school districts in the county that were considering placing fund-raising measures on the November ballot, Shepard said.

Officials with San Marcos Unified, which is considering a general obligation bond election to build new schools, said the district has not yet decided when to go to its voters.

“We are very interested in the San Dieguito election, but you’re talking about two different situations completely . . . every community is unique,” said San Marcos Unified Supt. Mac Bernd.

Encinitas Union School District Supt. Donald Lindstrom said schools are ill-equipped to run election campaigns.

“We’re so much out of the habit of being involved in tax elections that we don’t have the mechanisms. In the 1950s and ‘60s, that was the way to help fund our budget. And back then, it was part of people’s mind-set to campaign for funds,” said Lindstrom, whose own district mustered 59% of the vote last year in its failed effort for a parcel tax.

Encinitas Union, which feeds into San Dieguito Union, is in the discussion stages of a parcel tax election for next year, said Lindstrom.

San Dieguito Union’s effort may have been hurt by the hiring of an outside consultant to help in the campaign, Lindstrom said.

“Some people resent the fact that you are spending that money on consultants rather than putting it in the schools,” Lindstrom said.