3:00pm | Amid recent rallies to support public education funding and fears that more than 700 LBUSD teachers will soon be laid off, an effort has grown to put Measure T back on the upcoming ballot after it was easily defeated in November 2009.
The group leading the charge is called Save Our Schools (LBUSD), and describes itself as “a group of concerned parents, PTA members and leaders, community leaders/organizers and educators.”
Measure T would have placed an annual $92 parcel tax on Long Beach properties to fund the financially-strapped Long Beach Unified School District. Needed a two-thirds approval to pass, the measure received just over 43% of the vote and was soundly defeated.
But with ever-worsening financial statistics moving beyond hypotheticals and into classrooms – as class sizes rise and teachers face the very real possibility of unemployment – some are searching for alternative ways to drum up funding.
The website, soslbusd.com, claims that voters may not have been fully aware of what Measure T would have done and that there was “a lack of understanding that retired people could opt out of paying.”
If the movement is successful, the measure would be included in a June 8 special election. So far on two separate websites, however, only a small number of signatures needed have been collected (find the petition websites here and here).
LBUSD officials said during the original Measure T campaign that the annual $92 per parcel tax would certainly not solve the District’s budget woes, but maintained that it would go a long way to saving some services, supplies and jobs. The LBUSD school board approved a plan in 2009 to dramatically cut summer school and eliminated some bus routes in order to cut back.
Disclosure: lbpost.com publisher Shaun Lumachi was a consultant to the Parents, Teachers and Taxpayers for Safer Schools – Yes on Measure T campaign.