Homeowners, don’t put away your checkbooks
– the school district plans to send out a supplemental property
tax bill by May 1.
Gilroy
Homeowners, don’t put away your checkbooks – the school district plans to send out a supplemental property tax bill by May 1.
The tax is not new – it is a late collection of $6 million that the school district did not receive because of a paperwork error earlier this year. The levy is part of Measure J – a tax the school district has collected every year since 1974. Pending approval by the Gilroy Unified School District Board of Trustees and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, homeowners will receive a corrected tax bill in a few months along with a letter explaining the mishap, said Superintendent Deborah Flores.
Under voter-approved Measure J, the district collects $70.50 per $100,000 of assessed value. A homeowner with a $500,000 home will have to pay about $350.
Three trustees said they were leaning toward district staff’s recommendation to adopt a resolution requesting the county to correct the tax roll. The four other board members did not return phone calls.
“I think this needs to be fixed as close to the source as possible,” trustee Tom Bundros said. “When you’ve got an emergency, you’ve got to stop the bleeding first.”
The district needs the tax to make a $450,000 payment this month – though district administrators said they had the funds to cover it – and a $5.3 million bond payment this September. Other options, such as borrowing money from the county to pay their bills and doubling up on the tax next year, weren’t ideal, Bundros said. However, he hoped to learn more about them at Thursday’s board meeting.
Trustees Rhoda Bress and Mark Good agreed.
“Levying a supplemental tax bill is the best option,” Bress said. “We count on those funds to meet obligations and they’re due us. We have to collect on them.”
Good said he would be surprised if any of the board members did not support the resolution, reasoning it wouldn’t be fair to double tax property owners next year.
“I plan on casting a yes vote, without question,” Good said. “This needs to get done, period.”
It is still unclear which entity will foot what could be a $16,000 bill to send out the corrected tax to Gilroy’s property owners.
The error resulted from a “breakdown at all three levels,” Flores said, referring to the school district, the county and the county Office of Education. According to Flores, the district didn’t send the letter necessary to levy the tax to the county Office of Education, the county Office of Education didn’t ask why the letter wasn’t sent and the county sent out the tax bill without including Measure J.
Though Flores was puzzled why staff at the county levels didn’t make a phone call to check in with the district before omitting the tax, Jane Howard, a member of the county Board of Education, said the county superintendent is looking at the county’s organization to learn how the error slipped by and to ensure that it does not happen again. School district administrators are also investigating the source of the error.
Though Supervisor Don Gage said the matter has not officially been brought before the board for consideration, he has been working with the district to fix the problem since district staff brought it before him several weeks ago.
