Survey will gauge Hermosa Beach school tax sentiment
The Hermosa Beach city school board is inching closer to asking voters for more money, with plans to survey the electorate on its willingness to pay a parcel tax, or a special sales tax, to cover shortfalls caused by state budget cuts over the past few years. A competing option for the future of the public schools, converting one or both of Hermosa’s campuses to charter school status, remains alive. A volunteer committee, including enthusiastic supporters, said it will return to the school board in about two months with more information. The option of a new tax, usually discussed as a parcel tax, has gained more momentum than any other possibility under study by teams of board members and volunteers, who have spent months looking into the future of Hermosa’s small, 1,300-student district. Officials estimate that a tax of $200 per property parcel, and more for commercial and multi-unit residential parcels, would raise about $1.6 million a year. Seniors would be exempt, and officials have kicked around the idea of a three-to-five year life for the tax. A special 1 percent sales tax for the schools would generate an estimated $1.5 million per year, a special committee has found. That…
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