by DCG
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Proposition G (also called the parcel tax) in San Francisco was approved by voters in June 5, 2018. It authorizes San Francisco to levy an annual parcel tax of $298 per parcel of taxable real property in the city for 20 years with revenue provided to the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to fund educators’ salaries, staffing, professional development, technology, charter schools, and oversight of funding.
As a result, on June 27, the San Francisco Board of Education authorized raises for 3,600 teachers in the amount of a $5,500. They started receiving their raises in late August. (I don’t know which taxpayer fund the checks are coming from.)
And as is typical in big government, bureaucrats did not take the time to review the fine details. Actual monies collected from the parcel tax are in question as to 1) when the revenues will be available and 2) if they’ll be available at all to pay for these raises.
In a report from the SF Chronicle they note:
“The first property tax mailings that would include the Prop. G parcel tax have not yet been mailed to homeowners, [Mayor] Breed said, and the first payments on those taxes aren’t due until December. On top of that, both Breed and the Board of Supervisors have to approve and transfer the funds once they’re collected.
“Neither body has appropriated and transferred SFUSD any funds for this purpose,” Breed said.”
They mayor questioned the “fiscal prudence” of raising wages before the money generated by the measure has even been collected.
There’s also a separate legal challenge to Proposition C – related to commercial rents and education initiatives – that is tied to another suit (known as the Jarvis lawsuit). Read about the whole mess here.
The outcome of that Jarvis lawsuit could have an effect on the parcel tax and whether or not it is an illegal tax. It could in effect, depending upon the outcome, kill the revenue stream for these teachers’ raises.
As a result, the city cannot authorize parcel tax funds to pay for teachers’ raises which they are already receiving.
And that, my friends, is how big government works.
DCG