Can there be a downside to watching your home double, or even triple in value? If you ask local school districts there can be!
As the San Francisco Chronicle points out today, soaring home prices mean less school aged children for some school districts. Families with young children are less able to afford the skyrocketing home prices in areas across California. One may see this as a good thing in the short run as this would mean smaller class sizes and less overcrowding in certain areas. In the long run, this means less money coming in, teachers losing jobs and excellent schools dwindling away. To put this into perspective, Walnut Creek's schools receive an estimated $5,000 per student from the state - if their enrollment decreases by 30 students that equals $150,000!
How much of a decrease can these school districts handle? What impact does this have on outlying school districts that are becoming over crowded with the families fleeing the cities?
Menifee CA Homes Market Analysis April 2012
4 weeks ago
1 comments:
I don't agree with the San Francisco Chronicle in this case. I think they are trying to scare unsuspecting readers into thinking that there is a tragedy on our hands.
Public schools are primarily supported through property taxes. When home values increase, property taxes increase. Just because someone sells their home, doesn't mean that home is left vacant. The only way to sell a home is if someone else buys it. Thus, there is always someone new to carry on the tax burden.
The author is instead trying to tell us that decreasing enrollment means less State matching funds. But state-matching funds were created to help school districts in poor over-crowded areas, where there are more students than there are property taxes. That's not the case in San Francisco.
Chalk it up to the liberals at the San Francisco Chronicle for trying to make wealthy property owners look like the bad guys.
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