As a longtime resident and your City Councilman, I’m writing to urge you to
support Measure ES on the upcoming November 3rd ballot. Measure ES is the only
way to ensure our public schools continue to receive a reliable and essential funding
stream —funding in the amount of $12 million a year that has kept our schools
among the best in California as state and federal funding have diminished. So, as
someone whose day job is accounting, let me explain why.
For two decades, the City has allocated significant funding to our school district.
But today, the City is in the midst of a serious financial crisis. This is an indisputable
fact and anyone who says otherwise, doesn’t know how to crunch numbers. Sure,
the City Council is working its way out of “financial distress,” but the upswing is slow,
given the state of local and national economy. So, come next year, when the City’s
agreement with the school district expires (the Master Facilities Use Agreement—
MFUA), the City Council will face extremely tough budgetary decisions—cut city
services such as police, fire and library hours to maintain academic excellence in our
schools, or eliminate school funding, forcing the school district to make serious cuts
of their own in teachers, math and art programs, and early childhood education.
The numbers speak for themselves. Without Measure ES funding to replace the current
$12 million dollars a year our schools depend on, the previously mentioned budget
cuts will be made by the City Council. And none of us should want that. A strong
school district benefits the entire community, as do the level of police, fire and other
critical city services that make Santa Monica special.
Measure ES is critical. It isn’t additional school funding. It merely protects the existing
amount of school funding that the City’s own budget can no longer sustain.
At $495 a year for property owners, or roughly $1.36 a day, Measure ES is an
inexpensive way for residents to secure our children’s future.
I also want to highlight how carefully this measure was crafted. Seniors on fixed
incomes are exempt. Affordable housing, nonprofits, and religious organizations are
exempt. Thanks to local rent control protections, many renters will pay little or
nothing. This is not a one-size-fits-all tax — it’s designed to protect those least able
to pay while asking property owners to invest in the community’s future.
I understand hesitation around any new tax, especially when the city is already
under fiscal pressure. But that’s precisely the point: the city cannot be relied upon to
backfill this gap; voters must act directly to protect our schools. Measure ES was
placed on the ballot by residents, not politicians, specifically because they recognized
this risk and refused to wait for a crisis to arrive.
Santa Monica has always taken pride in strong public schools. We don’t want a citywide
budget crunch to unravel that legacy. I’ll be voting yes on Measure ES, and I hope
you will too.
