Millionaire's Tax Initiative Could Bring More than $5 Million to Petaluma Schools

The school funding situation in California is dire. A recent national report places California's funding per student, in cost-of-living-weighted dollars, as 47th of the 50 states.

The California Federation of Teachers, the Courage Campaign, and the California Nurses Association are putting forth a ballot initiative to help remedy this situation.

The Attorney General has named it the "Tax to Benefit Public Schools, Public Services, Public Safety, and Road Maintenance Initiative Statute." We just call it the "Millionaires Tax Initiative."

The initiative would not affect the taxes of the typical taxpayer.

The distribution of the revenue will be 25 percent for social services, 10 percent for public safety, 5 percent for roads, and the remainder (60 percent) for schools. For Sonoma County that will pencil out to $31 million for social services, $12 million for public safety, and $6 million for roads.

Locally, it means there would be $4.1 million for the Petaluma City Schools, $1 million for the Old Adobe sistrict, $3 million for Cotati-Rohnert Park, and $10 million for Santa Rosa schools.

These dollars would go towards rehiring laid-off teachers, reducing class sizes, and increasing instructional days for students in all schools.

Sign the petitions when offered, and vote for the Initiative in November.

Gary Ravani is the president of the Early Childhood/K-12 Council of the California Federation of Teachers and the Executive Director of the Petaluma Federation of Teachers, a local chapter of the California Federation of Teachers, which represents more than 120,000 state educators.