Proposition Y has been dividing the FHSD community. According to the Board, this was a way to raise the quality of education and keep it there for many years to come. This provided an $18 million solution with challenging times upon the school district coming, caused by a decrease in the national funding and the fact property values have been going down for several years around the district.

“We have an amazing district, and while no one wants to pay more, we don’t want less,” mother of children in the district, Michelle Walker said.

However, Prop Y was defeated by 66 percent of voters. Passage of Prop Y would have meant raising taxes around 90 cents for every $100 of the assessed value of a household, meaning $20 million additional revenue to the district.

“It would have kept status quo [for the school],” board member, Amy McEvoy said. “It would have kept everything in place. It would’ve kept all programs, teacher salaries, and everything else.”

Some taxpayers opposed Prop Y because of how high the tax rate was. Some citizens felt it was a wrong decision since many people would not know about it with school not being in session at the time. Putting Prop Y onto the August ballot cost the district around $250,000 causing some voters to be skeptical about Prop Y. The Board ultimately wanted to push this out before school started to gain back the 40 teachers they cut this year along with the many more possible cuts to come.

“I felt my stomach drop when it didn’t pass,” mother of children in the district, Amy Borrelli said. “I knew it would be good for the district. I knew that a bond had expired maybe the year before and that their was less money in the budget. This would have brought it back up. I knew if it didn’t pass that there were going to have to be some pretty drastic cuts to be made. I really did feel sick. I was really surprised.”

To spread the word about Prop Y this summer the families that approved of Prop Y had  knocked door to door, posted signs all over the district and even made phone calls to other family friends to let them know about the bill. The district had to maintain an objective side to things and to only provide the information about it. At the same time many people were protesting and campaigning against Prop Y saying that it would cost more than just 90 cents a day depending on how much a house costs.

“It’s kind of split [the community],” McEvoy said. “We have people coming to board meetings really upset that it didn’t pass and that are really proud of this district, that think we should be spending every dime we can for education. We have other people who love this district and want to spend all we can for education but say ‘Wait a second what are you going to do with this money? We felt like you did this very behind the scenes like it was during the summer.’ They said ‘If we are out of money then why did we spend $250,000 on an election?”

Starting last December, the Board of Education decided to hire a company to give out a survey to the public about a tax initiative due to rising expenses. People could be randomly picked, could go online as a community member, or were chosen from the employees within the district. This survey included questions from the qualities of the schools, varying from how clean they are to how safe their children feel when going to school. Some questions even asked people how they would feel about a certain price for a tax initiative to be put into place. The survey provided favorable results to something like Prop Y. One question asked if an election were held today how would they vote. The people who were randomly called favored it by 58 percent, the people who went online to take the survey by 62 percent, and the employees in the district by 81 percent.

“We took some time to evaluate what we heard from the community in the survey,” school board vice president, Rene Cope said. “ We put it on the August ballot in an effort to save staff positions and limit the impact to our students. It was important.”

Since Prop Y failed, administrators and the Board made decisions regarding next semester and the 2016-17 school year. At the School Board meeting on Sept. 17, the board decided to place another tax increase on the ballot in the next April election and make no further cuts this current fiscal year.

“The way it is, I don’t think it would pass again,” Borrelli said. “Really, the people voted and the residents said they did not want that sort of tax increase or bond. I think maybe if it was less money it would pass.”