Facebook donates $25 million for Palo Alto teacher housing project

It's inappropriate to use public assets, land, tax dollars, for one special interest. Public assets should benefit the public. PAUSD has the highest salary levels in the state for a unified school district and has no trouble recruiting personnel --- even though the union bargaining dictates that the high school calculus teacher gets paid the same as the elementary school PE teacher. In fact, one analysis shows that the average PAUSD salary on a daily basis (they don't work the whole year) beats the average tech worker's salary in the Bay Area. Health and pension benefits are richer. Given the unfunded pension liabilities for the District ($252 million for teachers and staff), for the City ($455 million), and the County ($3.9 million), public assets should be devoted to paying down public debts. Otherwise --- each Palo Alto resident will have to pony up for the mismanagement. PAUSD can pay even higher salaries to assist with high housing costs. Focus on your mission - to educate students.

My guess is that administrative costs will go through the roof. Typical government waste.

Gee $25 million. Thats 4 or 5 homes in PA. Way to go.

Umm, so 120 new houses for teachers. Assuming in average each teacher family have two school age children, PAUSD will get 240 new students.

At over $20,000 annual budget per student ($20,682 for 2019-20), PAUSD will need almost $5 million annual to educate these students.

I assume these housing is exempt from property taxes.

So my question is:

Who is going to pay for the $5 million that will increase every year?

Parent,

Enrollment is dropping and the average number of kids per unit will not be as high as you estimate.

The schools will need additional students to avoid laying off teachers.

That’s why Simitians’s hold up of Stanford is a farce.

@Paly Parent, it will depend on what gets built. The limited amount of teacher housing built to date has been primarily 1-2 BR apartments, and tends to cater to younger teachers. Typically this housing is time-limited as well, usually 5-7 years before the tenant has to leave. So generally there have been very few school age children at these developments.

Easy buy-in for Facebook to get Street cred in Menlo Park and EPA. $400K per unit is quite a deal for it to provide housing for its home town teachers.

Question is - after the units are built, who gets the proceeds of the rents? Is it a slush fund for the school district?

@A Paly Parent - Not all of the housing will be for PAUSD (even though they're using Palo Alto/Santa Clara County land). Who knows how they'll split that up. I would assume PAUSD can afford to pay more than Ravenswood, but does that mean that PAUSD gets more units? I doubt it.

As for the question of who will pay for any increase, do you really think the current board will worry about that? By the time these are built and rents are coming in, current board members will be long gone.

The assumption is that the property taxes on the units, plus the rents, will pay for educating any students, I believe. I doubt anyone's every pencilled out any projections, however.

The fact that an increase in donations automatically triggered the response to build more units is fairly alarming. Instead of decreasing the amount of public funds needed, they've essentially increased the public funds that will be needed going forward.

The teachers already have over 300 of their children attending PAUSD - out of district - not contributing one dime toward their cost of education at PAUSD. @$20k/student, that's $6 million right now.

If enrollment goes down, it goes down. And teachers may be laid off. So? Maybe that will give a chance for PAUSD to pay off the unfunded $252 million for teacher and staff pensions. Their employment isn't guaranteed. Otherwise us property owners will get assessed for their financial mismanagement.

Let's see - PAUSD fiscal and operational management.....didn't they just blow $6 million due to an administrative blunder? And miscalculated property taxes by $5 million before that? And spent $2 million on legal expenses b c they refused to follow the law? And paid out $$ settlements to students for not following the law? And didn't they just reveal they'll be cited for disproportionate designation of minorities in special education---again? And didn't they just reveal that socio economically disadvantaged students are performing poorly in PAUSD? And weren't the dyslexic parents just saying Tuesday that their kids aren't served? And isn't it true that only 25% of disabled PAUSD students graduate meeting a-g requirements? And didn't they shortchange PAUSD students of their instructional minutes ....again? What could possibly go wrong?

Does anyone know how, or if, PAUSD is compensated for VTP students? Do their property taxes get transferred over to PAUSD?

If not, then there are two groups of students, those of employees that live out of the district and those attending through VTP that do not contribute to PAUSD revenues. So, why is the board so focused on Stanford paying their fair share? I agree that Stanford should pay for the students added due to their housing. But why isn't the district trying to have ALL students be funded? Seems only fair.

1 - yes, VTP students come with some state funding. It comes from the state, not Ravenswood, which is state funded.

2 - PAUSD decided to allow children of staff to attend. This seems to be a compensation decision to drive recruitment and retention.

#1 is based on a consent agreement PAUSD entered into, enforced by a court; PAUSD has no option but to take the students and the funding provided. #2 is a compensation choice they made, so presumably they perceive it is worth it; besides, who would they try to get funding from?

New students from Stanford rental housing would be neither a benefit nor a choice - it would just be more students without more funding, and potentially larger than the other two sources combined. Funding would come from the property owner, Stanford. It seems obvious to me why it is a big deal.

They are just doing what they can to hold on to our tax dollars. Their grip is so, so tight to them. They won't let them go. Hell no, no teachers can be laid off. The gravy train must continue!

Let's find a way to get more children in the school district so we can keep our jobs! Stanford children! Oh no, let's get more money out of them. Use scare tactics, say the schools will be overflowing. Make them pay! But we know enrollment is going down, down,down....and so now we'll change tactics and move in for free, bring our kids and keep our jobs while educating our own children, but on your dime! Brilliant!

Agree with cover up culture. The district already support hundreds of non PA tax paying teachers AND administrators out of district kids kids. It's just one layer of the benefit, often they work the system to benefit their own child w/ preferred class placement for their kid and friends. There are even out of district kids of city employees attending PA schools. Someone Explain that benefit, please?!

We were not treated well when our child was in middle school and really could have come down hard on the district with lots of evidence (and were retaliated against including our child and practically taunted by district people who had no idea the level of restraint and grace from us), but even I cannot understand the opposition to this. In fact, I would challenge Facebook to do more.

I am grateful for this investment by Facebook, although it feels a little self-serving since it will probably end up being MP and EPA teachers. It's a drop in the bucket for Facebook --

What I really think they should do, since MZ and PC live in Palo Alto, is to set up a fund so that teachers, police, and firefighters and other public safety personnel who do a good job get access to a zero-interest down payment loan so they can buy their own homes in the community eventually. On a two-teacher income (or couple with one a teacher), that's way more than we make and perfectly possible to get into the market if they have the downpayment help. Maybe even the ability to work off the downpayment over summer volunteer teaching -- now THAT would be a real investment in our teachers.

The trouble with a reduced rental situation like this is that teachers will end up basically trapped and unable to move anywhere else if they want to stay. There could be resentments as it will end up a kind of lottery situation where some teachers benefit and others don't. I think it's a good start, but I hope the foundation considers something that really allows other core public servants to really make a life here.

The lowest paid city of Palo Alto firefighter makes $139k, before overtime and benefits. The average tech worker in the Bay area makes $122k. The average PAUSD teacher makes more/day than the average tech worker (teachers don't work a full year). Should the city offer no interest loans and PAUSD housing to tech workers? The City has $455 in unfunded pension liabilities, PAUSD has $252 million. Every public tax dollar collected should be devoted to paying those off, to benefit the public, and the pension recipients. Otherwise property tax owners will be assessed to pay those off.

This is why Sacramento needs to step in. Local action is solving the housing crisis 120 units at a time.

For only teachers.

Next it will solve it 120 units at a time. For only firefighters.

And it we'll all be long dead, if local action has its way, before anyone who isn't a municipal employee gets any relief. This is untenable. Code and public service alone do not a vibrant community make!

Thankfully, 18 bills were signed last week in Sacramento. At least elected officials somewhere are taking the crisis seriously.