Twenty-two of state Sen. Joe Simitian’s colleagues in the Senate are co-sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow lower the threshold for passing a local school parcel tax from two-thirds to 55 percent.

That’s an impressive number, except that Simitian, a Democrat from Palo Atlo, needs 27 votes – two-thirds of Senate – to move SCA 6 forward. And so far, as in years past, he can’t find one Republican willing to let voters decide for themselves.

Not willing to wait any longer, a new Bay Area-based group, Californians for Improved School Funding, has started circulating an initiative  that would achieve the same thing.

The organizers, led by Don Gibson, a trustee of the Sequoia Union High School District, are calling it Local Control of Local Classrooms Funding Act. They would like to see it make  the November ballot

The attorney general’s office approved the wording on Dec. 29. The group has until May 28 to collect 659,000 signatures. Gibson and others have been making pitches for financial backers to pay for signature gatherers and in expectation of opposition by anti-tax groups.

The wording of the initiative tries to anticipate some of the objections. It would require districts to set up a parcel tax oversight committee. It would exempt properties owned by senior citizens from the tax (although some of them already may be paying taxes on pre-Prop 13 assessments and should be paying more). And it would limit the parcel tax to a maximum of $250 per year. That’s in the high range for many districts, but less than the amounts that wealthy communities — Palo Alto, Ross  and Kentfield ($774) among them – have pushed through. Those districts could come back the next year and vote in $250 more.

Because all property owners pay the same amount, regardless of the value of the property, parcel taxes are basically regressive. And because wealthier communities tend to pass them – and in higher amounts  — they can accentuate funding disparities. Some argue that making it easier to pass a parcel tax could undermine the movement for larger school funding reforms.

But parcel taxes are about only method by which local districts can tax themselves. And schools, facing further cuts to their budgets, will need all the help they can get in coming years.

A study last year by EdSource found that 54 percent of 486 parcel tax proposals since 1983 have passed. If the 55 percent supermajority had been in place, 96 percent of them would have passed.

It’s hypocritical that Republican legislators, who generally advocate more local control, have not been willing even to put the initiative in voters’ hands. But the anti-tax groups they answer to have defined a vote for SCA 6 as a vote for higher taxes.

Simitian has always said that it will take desperate times for him to secure that last one or two Republican Senate votes.

This could be the year. Meanwhile, start signing the petition.

By John Fensterwald on January 25th, 2010