PUSD-Town Council Recap: State Tax Measures, Muir Principal

At a Saturday joint meeting with the Altadena Town Council, officials expressed their support for two state tax propositions that will appear on November's ballot and said the district could stand to lose $10 million in funding without their passage.

One of the two resolutions, proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown, would levy a new temporary tax on residents with household incomes above $250,000 as well as a half-cent sales tax increase.  The income tax increases would expire after five years and the sales tax would expire after four.

The long-term measure, state Senate Constitutional Amendment 5, would change election law to require only a 55 percent vote to pass local parcel tax measures, rather than the current two-thirds vote threshold.  The last local parcel tax benefiting PUSD, Measure CC, gained 54 percent of the vote in May of 2010.

John Pappalardo, PUSD's Chief Finance Officer, said that the PUSD board voted Tuesday to support Gov. Brown's tax increase, and will later vote on whether to also support the constitutional amendment.

As reported Saturday, , and several board members said at Saturday's joint Town Council meeting that they have deep concerns about the district's financial issues.

Discussion of the funding issues was just one of several topics discussed at the meeting.  Other subjects included:

• Several speakers referenced rumors that will be dismissed from her job and transferred to a teaching job.  All those who spoke voiced support for Orange and frustration that the information was leaked to the Pasadena Star-News.
• David Azcarraga, the district's facilities chief, said that because of state budget cuts, the district is looking like it will not receive about $90 million in funding it had expected as matching funds for the 2008 Measure TT parcel tax that was voted in to pay for facilities upgrades.  The district will continue to carry out projects with the funds it has.
• Jon Gundry, PUSD's superintendent, referenced recent union contentions that PUSD hires too many administrators while laying off teachers. He said the district has hired just one administrator in the last year, the district's new director of communications and community engagement..  Gundry, who used to work in Houston's school district, said he has not worked in a district with as few administrators as PUSD.  
• Gundry said that if PUSD had more funding, his priorities would be to hire academic coaches that would work directly in classrooms to help teachers improve their skills.  He said he would also want to hire more teachers, reduce class size and improve PUSD's after school and summer programs.
• At several points, Gundry and others said that there are plans being worked on right now to improve academic performance and campus safety issues at , as well as several other schools in the district.  More details on those plans will apparently be made public soon.