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# $225 school parcel tax headed for the polls
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/225-school-parcel-tax-headed-for-the-polls/
- Published: 2003-01-29T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:25:11.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import

*School board will take up issue on Thursday night*

After months of community positioning, a flat $225 tax on every parcel of land in Santa Monica and Malibu has been proposed to go before voters.

A parcel tax exploratory committee voted Monday to recommend the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board call a special June 3 election and ask voters to approve the tax. The tax — which will fall on property owners and can be passed down to renters — will have a term of six years.

If approved, the tax would generate about $6.5 million annually for the school district, which is facing a loss of nearly $19 million in state funding during the current year and next year.

The school board has called a special meeting Thursday to decide whether it will adopt the recommendation.

“We wanted the fairest approach we could get that would give us the best chance of winning,” said Harley Frankel, a parcel tax committee member.

“We are trying to prevent massive cuts to our schools,” he said. “So we were trying to be fair while still winning the election.”

The committee considered two other options that would have included both a flat fee and a tax on the amount of square feet in a building. The first proposal was a $60 flat fee with a 7-cent tax for every square foot of developed property. The other called for a $110 flat rate and a 5-cent tax for every square foot of developed space.

The last option was tossed out based on results from a recent poll of voters who had little support for either plan.

A study of those options released Monday night by the committee showed that most renters, homeowners, and businesses would end up paying more under the varying proposals than the original $300 tax proposal which was shot down in the November election.

Voters in favor of the school district historically have been renters and large homeowners — the two groups most hurt by a varying parcel tax, Frankel said.

“There were a lot more people under those scenarios that would be paying more than under the flat tax,” said Mark Harding, a parcel tax committee member. “So the committee felt the flat tax was the fairest option.”

Renters who live in buildings that have more than four units — which is about 75 percent of renters living in the district — would pay more under a varying proposal than under the flat tax, Frankel said.

For example, in a 100,000-square-foot apartment building with 100 units, each renter would pay $70.60 annually under the varying proposal, but under the flat tax they would pay $2.25 a year.

About 50 percent of Malibu residents polled said they were opposed to a varying tax. Committee members said for a varying tax to succeed, it would need more than 70 percent support in Santa Monica, which would be difficult to achieve.

Lowering the tax to $198 for each parcel to gain more voter support also was discussed. But that was thrown out because members believed it would bring in about $800,000 less for the school district while not increasing votes substantially.

One member, Don Gray, said a flat tax is full of contradictions. He said it would allow senior citizens who own property to be exempt from the parcel tax, but seniors renting apartments wouldn’t be.

He said the committee is trying to pass off last year’s ballot measure as something new, but he said voters won’t go for it.

“Renters and businesses profit and the average homeowner gets screwed again,” Gray said.

> “Renters and businesses profit and the average homeowner gets screwed again.” — — DON GRAY Parcel tax committee member

Parcel tax supporters said the new measure is far different from the original one because it is only for six years instead of 12; it allows seniors to be exempt and it doesn’t adjust upward with the cost of living.

“To say this is the same as (last year’s ballot measure), I think those are people who are looking for an excuse to fight us,” said Neil Carrey, chair of the Parcel Tax Committee. “For some people we are not talking about a lot of dollars. They spend many times more than this on a weekend going out to dinner.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 29, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/012903.pdf?ref=smdp.com)