Business Leaders Kick in for Parcel Tax

By Jorge Casuso

April 3 -- Some of Santa Monica’s top business leaders Tuesday got a crash course on the school district’s budget crisis from the experts -- the teachers who daily put up with a lack of paper and pencils in their classrooms.

At a breakfast fundraiser hosted by Hotel Casa del Mar, teachers, City officials and district representatives spelled out the fallout of a looming $13 million budget shortfall the district will face if voters fail to pass a parcel tax in June.

Heeding warnings that the failure of Proposition S would not only impact education, but also health and public safety, business leaders pledged $25,000 and vowed to help raise funds for the initiative, which would pump $6.5 million a year into the cash-strapped district.

“I feel very concerned about the situation of our schools,’ said Kim Karie, a public policy consultant with two children in district schools who organized the fundraiser.

Her daughter at her side, Karie acknowledged the school principal and teachers in the audience and added, “We need to see the faces of those who will be affected. This is something that affects us all. There should be no division.”

“The children of the Santa Monica Malibu School District are being victimized by projected budget cuts,” former mayor Nat Trives told the crowd. “Money is important for you business folks, but children are more important.”

Trives ticked off the projected cuts approved by the school board -- 66 full-time teachers and 25 special programs teachers issued pink sips, class sizes increased, elementary music programs axed, library coordinators eliminated, nurses and janitors laid off.

Trives noted that the $225 flat tax benefited businesses, some of which faced taxes of as high as $70,000 a year under a discarded proposal that would have based the tax on a $60 flat tax plus square-footage.

“The chamber said we want one hundred percent support of business,” Trives said. “Now we have a tax that’s fair to all. It’s fairer to tenants in this town than the other tax. We want everybody to put the shoulder to the wheel.”

School board member Jose Escarce noted that of the 50 states, California raked 48th in funding per student when cost of living was taken into account. The state was 49th in student to teacher ratio, he said.

“We have to pass Measure S,” Escarce said. “I have three kids in the schools, and I can’t contemplate the alternative.”

Matt Dinolfo, a physician and member of the parcel tax committee, warned that the “health care implications” of the proposed elimination of five nurses and three clerks would be “draconian.”

There are 62,574 health office visits a year in the district, 13, 614 doses of medication given and 3,122 students with health problems and chronic illnesses, said Dinlfo, the former chief of staff at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center.

“If these nurses go, who’s going to do it?” Dinolfo said. “Medication errors will occur. They will get horrible care… If you don’t have a trained staff, you will have a disaster, or many disasters.”

Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr. addressed the impacts of the proposed cuts on public safety.