If you've been following Measure ES in these pages, you've heard that the school district is flush, that the cuts are exaggerated, and that this is a City tax in disguise. I'm a Santa Monica parent, a PTA volunteer, and a member of the SMMUSD Financial Oversight Committee. I've followed our school district’s budget for more than eight years. I write for myself, not the committee.
Here is the fact that matters most: For more than 20 years, the City has paid our schools about $12 million a year. That agreement ends in June 2027, and the City's own staff report says that if Measure ES fails, its plan is to stop paying.
The District ended last year ahead of Plan. A Good Year doesn’t replace $12 million a year.
Districts like ours close the year ahead of plan because they must budget conservatively; otherwise, they risk cutting programs and teachers mid-year. A good year is not a sign of extra money. Here is what its own budget reports show.
1. A good year doesn't change what happens when $12 million stops coming every year. Last year's $6.1 million surplus came largely from one-time money. It would cover about half of a single year's loss.
2. District spending is projected to exceed revenue in each of the next three years, by $9 million to $12 million a year.
3. Those projections still assume the City's $12 million keeps coming. Take it out, and the three-year gap grows from about $31 million to about $55 million.
4. The reserves are already spoken for: covering those projected deficits, a two-month operating reserve that is still below the district's own policy, and the 3% reserve state law requires.
Why losing $12 million hits so hard
SMMUSD is a Basic Aid district. It runs on local property taxes and local funding, not a predictable state formula, and about a quarter of its main operating revenue is tied to the City. The $12 million alone is about 7% of that revenue, roughly the cost of retaining 73 teachers. This is not a hypothetical. The City's budget plan already assumes the payment ends. It is a scheduled loss of $12 million a year, every year.
Why Measure ES is the practical answer
Nobody wants another tax, and I don't take that lightly. But a No vote doesn't save $12 million. It only decides who loses it: our classrooms or City services. Measure ES replaces a payment our schools have counted on for two decades with an alternate stable source. Under the measure's text, the money goes only to SMMUSD. It can't pay for administrator salaries or new buildings, and it requires an independent audit every year. Seniors who live in their homes are exempt, and most renters pay nothing.
It also gives the City room to steady its own budget without cutting services residents rely on.
Feelings about past surpluses and City spending are real. But the facts point one way. Whatever you think of how we got here, Measure ES gives our schools a stable funding source in uncertain times. That's why I'm voting yes.
Payal S Maniar