Being a school based in Chico, many of Inspire students have been hearing about Measure C, and have been encouraged to participate in its campaign. But what is it?

According to the Chico Ballot, Measure C is a proposed financial plan that will be voted upon on November 5, 2024. In Measure C, Chico Unified asks for authorization to sell 239 million dollars in bonds, which would help to pay for repairs of Chico schools. Although the money would go to help repair leaky roofs, windows, plumbing, and HVAC units, it would primarily focus on repairing and expanding aging elementary schools that are a part of Chico Unified, including reading and literacy programs.

Measures can be dense information and may confuse those not usually involved. Inspire’s economics teacher, Ms. North, helps to explain.

“[T]he way that a bond works at the local level, especially in terms of education, a bond is essentially like an IOU,” says Ms. North. Essentially, this is a kind of loan that CUSD would take out, and would slowly get the money to pay it back. “[T]hat money would come directly from an increase of property taxes… that increase has limits of how much based on the state constitution.”

Measure C is estimated to cost taxpayers a maximum of $60 per $100,000 of assessed property value, meaning if you owned a house estimated to be worth half a million dollars, Measure C would cost you about $300 annually. Chico Unified believes this would bring in about 15.4 million dollars per year, which they would use to pay back the $239 million that they borrowed.

CUSD has proposed many similar measures in the past, all of which have passed. This measure would be the largest one yet. Measures A, E, and K passed in 1998, 2012, and 2016 respectively. According to Chico Unified, the most recent measure, Measure K, worth $152 million, went to fund projects such as Marigold Elementary, Loma Vista Program, Shasta Elementary, Neal Dow Elementary, and improvements to both CHS and PVHS stadiums. Chico High also received their agricultural space, while Pleasant Valley got funding for their culinary, medical, education, and engineering pathways. Inspire received funding set aside for our new campus from Measure K.

For both previous measures and Measure C, people have been worried about where this funding would go. “Opposition for it was… worried it would go to salaries, or employee benefits, but lawfully the measures can’t do that, so I think that was misunderstanding by the opposition” Ms. North recalls regarding Measure K.

Although it is written into Measure C that the money will not be used to pay for executive salaries or employee benefits, or go towards schools that are not in Chico, keeping the money local, there still is similar opposition to the more recent measure. There are many that are upset regarding the raising of taxes higher than they already are, as well as how schools used their funding received during COVID for relief.

A poster on chicotaxpayers.com wrote on October 4th “Chico Unified has another bond on the November ballot, Measure C. I just want to remind people how they spend money down at the school district.” They continue to discuss how in 2021 four members of Chico Unified School Board were up for recall regarding their decision to spend $2,463,606 of COVID relief funds on school district staff bonuses, including themselves – three out of the four of which were also school district employees.

Regardless of concerns regarding how CUSD decides to budget this money on a district scale, once the money makes it to individual schools, the budget is a bit different. “It’s important to think about this… in an economic way. [T]hese are project grants that have specific strings that the schools can only use these funds for a certain purpose.” Ms. North states. “Those kinds of things, making sure that sanitation and PPE things were purchased and followed through and accountable… I can only speak to what I’ve experienced in the classroom.” Essentially, schools do what they can to fulfill the purpose of the funding allocated to them, and Measure C isn’t the same kind of funding that COVID relief was.

So what would Inspire be able to do if Measure C passes? Well, Inspire is not a Chico Unified school, but 15.45% (about $37 million) of Measure C is dedicated to Chico charter schools. “In all the communications and the collaborative work we have done with the district… for them to provide the funds that we need to move off Chico high’s campus, they have promised a high percentage of that money, millions of dollars, will go to fund the creation of our new campus.” says North.

According to Ms. Brown, If Measure C were to pass, Inspire would receive $10 million. This, along with previous bond funding (Measure K), Charter School Facilities Grant Program funding from the state, and a loan from the state would make up the remaining $21.7 million in funding needed for Inspire to break ground on our new campus, immediately after the passage of Measure C.

If you would like more information on Measure C, Chico Unified board meetings and Inspire Foundation board meetings are open to the public. Measure C will be voted upon on November 5th, 2024. Purple Pages encourages their readers to get involved in the community, get informed, and have their voices heard.