Tam Union school district to poll voters on reduced bond measure
The district, having failed to win approval of a $517 million plan, wants to gauge the public's tolerance for a $440 million alternative.
The Tamalpais Union High School District plans to poll district voters on whether they would approve a scaled back bond measure on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The district trustees voted Tuesday to have Godbe Research Inc. conduct telephone and online queries to gauge whether a $440 million bond would be more acceptable than the $517 million bond measure that failed to earn the required 55% voter approval in March.
“Facilities matter, both for students and for teachers,” said Tara Taupier, district superintendent. “School facilities are a once-in-a-generation commitment. This is the way things are funded in the state of California.”
If approved, the $440 million proposal would assess a tax of $25 per $100,000 of assessed valuation per property annually. Under the $517 million package, the annual tax would have been $30 per $100,000 of assessed valuation.
“All of the top priorities in our facilities master plan have been kept in, as have all of the projects identified for Archie Williams High School,” said Corbett Elsen, assistant superintendent of business and operations.
The facilities master plan, which took 11 months to complete and was approved in April 2022, focused on the most critical needs for the district, Elsen said. The $440 million bond would keep intact all the most crucial improvements such as disability access, roof repairs and heating, cooling and ventilation systems, he said.
“You’ve done a good job of holding onto the projects that reflect on the education and safety of our children,” Leslie Harlander, the board president, said of the $440 million proposal.
Mimi Willard, who led the opposition to Measure A in March through her group, the Coalition for Sensible Taxpayers, said she was still analyzing the new proposal and was not ready to take a position yet.
“This is progress,” Willard said in an email on Thursday. “Eighty-five percent of a big tax is still a big tax, so COST will look carefully at the proposal to evaluate the financial and educational merits.”
Elsen focused on Archie Williams High School in San Anselmo in his statements because in March, voters in Fairfax and San Anselmo, whose children attend that school, cast the lowest number of “yes” votes for Measure A. Elsen said Archie Williams was not being slighted in comparison with other district high schools in terms of bond projects.
The proposed $440 million bond would include new outdoor classrooms, air conditioning and at least a half-dozen other items at Archie Williams that the facilities master plan participants in the community deemed as critical, he said.
“Archie Williams has 10 more classrooms than Tam High,” Elsen said. The high school also has a relatively new student center, something the other high schools do not.
Elsen said the lower $440 million cost stems from deferring or retooling several other projects. For example, a cost savings of $16 million would be realized by deferring plans for a new auto shop building at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, he said.
Elsen said there were 50 students enrolled in the Tam High auto shop program. Those students could continue their classes either at College of Marin or at Terra Linda High School, he said.
Another $32 million in savings would be realized by dropping plans to build a new cafeteria at Redwood High School in Larkspur and instead enlarging the existing cafeteria, kitchen and line service space.
“Redwood cafeteria was falsely mischaracterized as a ‘$100 million gold-plated cafeteria,’ which caused significant community confusion,” Elsen said, referring to statements made by COST during the March Measure A campaign.
In fact, Elsen said, the cafeteria would have cost $23 million.
“The estimated cost for replacing four buildings — the cafeteria, student commons, arts classrooms, music classrooms — was $104 million total,” Elsen said.
The retooled project would still address the problem of overcrowding at the Redwood cafeteria caused by a state mandate to serve “universal” meals to all students.
“We are now serving a free breakfast and a free lunch to all students,” Elsen said. “The number of meals served has gone from 300 to 800 meals per day.”
The extra meal service has created a need for more kitchen space, more line service space and more sheltered space for students to sit down, he said.
Redwood students, unlike those at Archie Williams and Tam High, are not allowed to drive off campus at lunch. They are allowed to walk off campus, but there aren’t that many lunch spots close by, as there are at Archie Williams and Tam, Elsen said.
Another $36 million in cost savings would be realized through more than a dozen other items. Those range from the elimination of new solar heating for Redwood’s swimming pool and shade structures or additional student services space at Redwood and Tam High, reduced information technology costs districtwide and lower costs than expected for portable classrooms at Redwood and Tam High.
If approved by voters, the new proposal would have to cover the $6 million in construction cost escalation due to the lag time in starting the work based on what was expected if the original proposal had passed in March, Elsen said.
Polling is expected to take place in the next few weeks. The board will review polling results at the May 28 board meeting.
The deadline to place a measure on the Nov. 5 ballot is Aug. 9.