MV Council Considers Additional $10.8M for K-12 School Districts From Shoreline Funds

Before an impassioned, standing-room-only crowd of parents, the Mountain View  authorized city staff to pursue a modification to the Educational Enhancement Reserve Joint Powers Agreement Tuesday night.

City Manager Kevin Duggan called it “a bridge.'' It appeared like a lifeline to those school districts seeking to tap into more of the coveted  Shoreline Community district funds. 

The action paves the way to providing an additional one-time payment of $10.8 million to the  (MVWSD) and the  (MVLA) Union High School District over the next three years.

These funds, which come from the Shoreline Community district, come at a time when the districts’ budgets face reduction from the state, a drop in resources from property taxes and a decrease in charitable contributions resulting from the down economy. Los Altos students attend both Mountain View High School and Los Altos High School, part of MVLA.

Now MVWSD could possibly receive an additional $6.8 million and MVLA $4.0 million on top of the $2.79 million already allocated for the next three years from the fund. The district needs the money desperately, according to parents.

“I’m angry that my son at Landels sits outside in the rain to eat his lunch, because the picnic tables are outside and the awning blew off,” said Graham Poor, a parent of a child at . “There is a math problem. I’m mad because it doesn’t make sense.”

The math problem that Graham referred to was how a city like Mountain View, which has world-class corporations like , does not have better-funded school districts. A reason, claim parents associated with the local grassroots advocacy group Share Shoreline, is that the Shoreline Community District doesn’t share its surplus.

“Our group has never advocated for the sun-setting of the Shoreline district,” said Jim Pollart, a parent and organizers of the group. “We want Shoreline to operate in a manner that is viable and secure. But its surplus funds? Please share them with our schools.”

Created in 1969 by a state legislative act, the Shoreline Community district has a board of directors—Mountain View’s city council members—charged with the district's development, operation, maintenance and improvement. To provide revenues for this undertaking, property taxes received by the city of Mountain View from the North Bayshore neighborhood became frozen at the assessed values in 1977.

As property values increased, the additional taxes went into the Shoreline district to fulfill obligations under the act, which includes landfill management and environmental preservation. In Duggan’s report to City Council, he said the property value in the Shoreline Community district has increased from $33.9 million to $2.4 billion. The balance of the community funds has ranged from $11-$40 million over the same period, according to Patty Kong, the fund treasurer.

In 2005, the Shoreline Community decided to initiate discussions with the school districts, even though the legislative act did not require it, according to Duggan. The result was the creation in 2006 of the Educational Enhancement Reserve Joint Powers Agreement, “in order to attract and retain a quality employment base and future supply of quality employees.”

As part of the agreement, the school districts have each received annually approximately $464,000 for a total of $5.2 million from the Shoreline Community.

However Duggan recognized that the schools have had it rough recently with the economy and the imminent state budget cuts, so he proposed to the City Council two options for consideration. 

Option 1 guarantees a range of funds for the school districts. Share Shoreline pushed for the higher range of monies and called it “Option 1B.” The City Council appeared to agree with Duggan and the parents but emphasized the importance of the Shoreline Community District funds.

“We build reserve funds, and people call it a surplus, but it’s not,” said Councilwoman Laura Macias, who supported Option 1B. “It’s there so that we can be responsible and build our Triple-A rating.”

Councilwoman Ronit Bryant expressed her frustration that the “school district isn’t funded the way it should be.” Like many people inside the Council Chambers she said she believed that “to make Mountain View better, we need to make the schools better.”

She cautioned, however, that another draw to the city has been the decades-long improvement to Shoreline.

“Shoreline is not at the point where we can say it’s great, that it’s built up,” Bryant said. “A lot of cities are pouring money into their shores, and we got to be able to compete.”

The second option—to keep the funds the same—had no support from the community, and the City Council didn’t even bring it up.

The additional funds don’t change the fact that the school districts need a lot more money, especially if Mountain View plans to attract homeowners who want good local schools, some observed.

“More investment in schools means higher property values,” said Brett Pauly, the father of a second-grader, whose teacher asked him to donate paper towels. “Every property owner in Mountain View should care about this.”