Measure B: Tam school district board backs new $289-million bond measure

The Tamalpais Union High School District will ask voters to approve a $289-million bond measure in November, money officials say is critical to completing time-sensitive facilities upgrades without having to make cuts to staff and programs.

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The district’s board of trustees voted unanimously at its Aug. 6 meeting to approve the measure for the Nov. 5 ballot. The formal approval came after board members signaled their preliminary support for the measure at their previous meeting in late June.

The measure, which would need 55% approval to pass, would charge a tax of $17.60 per $100,000 of assessed value on properties in the district, which includes Tiburon, Belvedere, Strawberry and more than a dozen other communities along the Highway 101 corridor south and west of San Rafael, netting the district some $20.7 million annually. For the median district home assessment of $1.1 million, the tax would be about $193 annually, according to district figures.

The $289-million proposal is nearly half the $517-million bond that narrowly failed at the polls in March, garnering 54% support where 55% was needed to pass. It’s also significantly lower than a $440-million proposal that was considered by the board in the spring but was abandoned after a survey showed tepid support from voters.

District officials have said the scaled-back measure is intended to be a compromise of sorts, securing funding for what they’ve identified as the highest priority projects for student safety while also taking into account resounding feedback from many district voters who said the price tag of the $517-million measure was just too high.

They’ve also stressed the importance of passing a measure on the November ballot, saying that if it fails, state law dictates the district would have to wait until 2026 to try again. They’ve warned that the urgency of some of the work — particularly districtwide heating, ventilation and cooling upgrades and roof repairs, which need to be done in the next two to five years — means that if a bond measure doesn’t pass in November, the district will likely have to cut programs to pay for the projects.

Money from the proposed bond measure would fund an estimated $103.3 million in projects at Redwood High School, the main public high school attended by students from the Tiburon Peninsula. Those include some $73 million toward building new art and music classrooms, expanding the school’s kitchen and constructing a new covered eating area; an estimated $22 million in roof and HVAC replacements; and a $1.1-million replacement of the turf on Ghilotti Field.

Tamalpais High School would see $120.6 million in work, including $76.6 million for a new three-building science, technology, engineering, arts and math complex with updated classrooms and a music center. Other projects include an estimated $33.5 million in roof and HVAC upgrades along with a kitchen modernization, resurfacing of the school track, replastering of the school pool and elevator replacement.

The district’s third traditional high school, Archie Williams in San Anselmo, would see about $60.3 million in funding, including an estimated $27.4 million for roof and HVAC replacement, $11.3 million to modernize its performing arts center and $2.4 million each to replace its football and baseball fields.

Work proposed for the district’s alternative high schools, Tamiscal and San Andreas, and the district office would total about $5.5 million, prioritizing roof and HVAC upgrades.

The stripped-down measure reduces or defers nearly a dozen projects included in the original $517-million bond, including the installation of new synthetic-turf athletic fields, some information technology upgrades, portable classroom replacements at Tamiscal and upgrades to the Redwood High School weight room. Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations Corbett Elsen has said the district will need to find additional funding for those projects down the road.

“We’ll have to at some point in the future hear from the community and a future board and decide how to address that,” he said.

Board member Karen Loebbaka stressed that the deferred work is also considered critical by the district, and that’s why the district originally pursued the $517-million bond. However, she reiterated the district has made an effort to identify the most time-sensitive projects in the scaled-back bond measure, noting that if it doesn’t secure the funding, it will have to pull money away from its general budget to pay for the work.

“That means changes in programming and staffing, and that’s going to change this district to be something unrecognizable,” Loebbaka said.

She said she was optimistic the community would back the $289-million measure.

“We cut the original amount by almost a half, we listened to the community not only by not getting the vote in March but also by going out and asking more and more questions, ‘What can we do? What’s your appetite?’” she said. “I think we’ve heard that this should get us there.”

Reach Assistant Editor Emily Lavin, The Ark’s education and youth reporter, at 415-944-3841. Support local journalism and SUBSCRIBE NOW for home delivery and access to the digital replica.

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