An eye on Measure I

A ballot measure that seeks to bolster early childhood education in the county will come at a small cost to the consumer—but might compromise the city of Sebastopol's plan to balance its finances

Measure I would raise the county’s sales tax by a quarter cent, which would create $30 million of funding annually for early childhood education in Sonoma County.

As a result of the last decade’s wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, education metrics in Sonoma County—and the entire country—have been down across the board.

Since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020, Sonoma County has lost 5,000 child care slots, according to the Community Child Care Council of Sonoma County.

But, all things considered, the state of childcare and early childhood education in the county wasn’t all that great to begin with.

According to a report from the Road to Early Achievement and Development of Youth (READY) Project, just 40 percent of Sonoma County children were “ready” for kindergarten in 2016. Ready in this context means not only that children can recognize colors and shapes when they are observed, but also that they can play nicely with other kids and can follow directions.

By the Fall of 2022, only 20 percent of kids tested as “ready.” While that number managed to climb to 32 percent in 2023, it is clear that a majority of young children are not being set up for success in K-12.

Fixing that reality, or at least chipping away at it, is the goal of Measure I, also known as the Sonoma County Child Care and Children’s Health Initiative. It’s a plan to fund early childhood education through a quarter-cent countywide sales tax that would be approved via a majority vote on the ballot this November.

If passed, the quarter-cent sales tax would raise $30 million annually. That money would be given to First 5 Sonoma County, an independent public agency, to distribute.

According to Angie Dillon-Shore, the executive director of First 5 Sonoma County, 60 percent of the funds will be used to shore up the existing early education system.

“The first priority is to raise the wages of the lowest paid child care providers,” she said. “That could be child care providers in subsidized programs like Head Start and California State Preschool, family child care providers or private center providers.”

Dillon-Shore and other educators noted that the wages and working conditions of preschool teachers are often so poor that the field struggles to recruit high-quality professionals and to keep them around.

“Most preschools don’t make enough money to do repairs on top of the main priority, which is making sure staff is paid well,” said Julie Day, the owner of The Bridge School in Santa Rosa.

Dillon-Shore added that if Measure I is approved, she would like to create a system for training professionals in the field.

“We’d also like to do some things like paid apprenticeships with the junior college,” she said, “so that folks are able to move through that early part of their career. What happens a lot is that folks say, ‘I'm just not going to be able to support my own family as an early childhood provider, and so I think I'll change course and do something else.’”

The rest of the aforementioned 60 percent will be used to 1) maintain and fix childcare facilities, many of which have mold or other serious issues, and perhaps build new, more conveniently located structures and 2) create scholarships and stipends for families whose incomes may not be low enough to qualify for childcare vouchers or subsidies, but nonetheless are struggling to afford it.

“We have a lot of families in Sonoma County that it costs so much to keep their child in child care that they opt just to stay out of the workforce, which, of course, impacts women more than it does men,” Dillon-Shore said.

The remaining 40 percent of funds won’t go directly into the education system, but will rather go toward “children’s health and wellness,” an area that Dillon-Shore and her team believes are crucial to the success of children early in life and later on.

This includes “making sure that kids are getting their vaccinations and their developmental screenings on time.”

“The other 40 percent of funds will be working with, not just our healthcare system, but also community-based organizations that serve families and children, particularly around health, mental health, and parenting,” Dillon-Shore said. “The vast majority of brain development happens before the age of five, so it's really important to catch developmental problems as early as possible, because then they can be addressed and mitigated so it doesn't become a lifelong learning issue.”

While some may be worried that that money could go towards administrative costs that only work to bolster the resources of First 5 and other nonprofits, Dillon-Shore noted that for the last 25 years, her organization has never taken more than 15 percent of revenue.

“With this additional revenue, because of the economy of scale, I expect our administrative costs to go down even more,” she said.

According to Claudia Galliani, the campaign manager for the “Our Kids Our Future” Political Action Committee which campaigned to get the votes needed to put Measure I on the ballot, there will also be “an independent financial audit of the revenues and expenditures of the Fund will be released to the public” on an annual basis.

As it stands, there is nothing on the ground that resembles anything close to a universal pre-K education system akin to the country’s K-12 system.

While funding for childcare programs has increased mightily on the state and federal level under the administrations of both Governor Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden, most of that work has more or less gone towards recovering the losses from the fires and the pandemic.

To go beyond that will be costly, but, according to Dillon-Shore, along with endorsers of Measure I that include State Senator Mike McGuire and Congressman Jared Huffman, the $30 million in funding a year can be seen as a way to make up for the lack of a comprehensive program on the state and federal level.

How much would Measure I’s quarter cent sales tax cost consumers? It would add 25 cents to a $100 purchase of taxable goods. (The sales tax does not apply to groceries or prescription drugs.) Measure I also has no sunset clause, which means it would run in perpetuity or take another round of campaigning, signatures and voting to get rid of it.

Sebastopol’s dilemma

While the quarter-cent sales tax hike may be a tough pill to swallow for some county residents, it may prove an even tougher pill for the city of Sebastopol, whose residents will also be voting on Measure U, a half-cent sales tax rise to pay for necessary city services (read more about that here).

According to City Manager Don Schwarz, the passing of Measure I could inhibit Sebastopol from enforcing the entire amount of that sales tax.

“There is a standard 2% cap on local sales taxes,” said Schwarz. “State law authorizes Sonoma County and the cities to enact an additional 1% in sales tax above the standard 2%. State law is ambiguous as to whether the County and each city may separately enact additional 1% sales tax, or if that 1% applies collectively. No court has ever ruled on this issue. If it is determined that the additional authorization applies collectively, the City may have to decrease the sales tax [hike] to .25%.”

In other words, if both Measure I and the half-cent Sebastopol tax pass, that could cut Sebastopol’s “Measure U” tax in half, with a possible legal challenge ensuing.