DID YOU KNOW That The Local School Districts Have Too Much Money?

Our local school districts are so overfunded that excess Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) funds are not sent to our local school districts. Parents who may be being asked to help support fundraising efforts need to be properly educated and understand that the public school system in Redwood City has too much money!

According to the LA County Auditor’s office "ERAF is a mechanism, enacted in July of 1992 by the State Legislature to shift local property tax revenues from cities, counties, and special districts to an Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund. These funds are allocated by the State to schools to help meet minimum funding requirements."

http://auditor.lacounty.gov/bw...

But in Redwood City those funds do NOT go the schools, they go to the general fund for the city council to use in any which way they please including what they just approved during last week’s city council meeting the destruction of an entire neighborhood. I wonder how many homeowners that regularly pay their property taxes in Redwood City, assuming that certain funds are going to the school districts, feel about this.

That elderly grandmother struggling to pay her property taxes but thinking at the very least she is supporting the schooling of her grandchildren. Poor thing she is being hoodwinked by the government, as in reality her hard earned dollars are going into the general fund and are now being used to destroy local neighborhoods and communities such as Docktown. Not only are local government coffers being looted to the detriment of her grandchildren’s education but those grandchildren’s likely future ability to afford a home in this area is being further imperiled by the use of those funds for the destruction of housing further reducing the already limited housing stock. Her trust in government be it local, state or national must be at an all time high!

No this is not a “misnomer” as City Council Woman Shelly Masur explained at last week’s Redwood City Council meeting; this is a deliberate deceit of the tax paying citizen. In marketing we would call it false advertising. In fact this is what makes fake news so complicated. When government programs that raise money are labeled in such a manner as to make it impossible for busy citizens to understand that in fact they aren’t funding what they think they are everything becomes fake. Citizens that believe their tax dollars are being used for education when in fact they are not should be outraged and take action. While those ERAF funds may not be required to be spent on school districts, the operative word being required, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. The Redwood City City Council should do the right thing and give that money to the school districts!

Shame on Redwood City!