A parcel tax that funds libraries, sports and staffing at West Contra Costa schools is up for renewal this November, and many students and staff fear what they might lose if it fails.
Measure V, which generates about $10 million annually, has been a critical source of funding for WCCUSD.
Since 2004, it has been renewed every four to eight years to raise money for sports and school libraries and to hire dozens of staff, from counselors and speech therapists to custodians and school safety officers.
The rate has remained the same since 2004 — 7.2 cents per square foot of total building area — costing an average homeowner about $96 per year, according to WCCUSD. Seniors and disabled property owners are exempt.
“It’s less than a Netflix subscription,” WCCUSD spokesperson Liz Sanders told Richmondside.
The school board voted to keep the rate the same to help increase the likelihood of its passage. Such measures aren’t guaranteed to win given they require two-thirds voter approval. In the June primary election, the Contra Costa Community College’s Measure G failed. The bond would have raised money to improve campus infrastructures.
If Measure V fails, the district says it will either need to find an additional $8 million a year or find things to cut.
A closer look at what parcel tax has paid for
Richmondside looked more closely at how the money was spent from 2015 to 2025 to help voters understand where their dollars are going.
On average, the bulk of the money funds school libraries, about $3.5 million each year. The next highest categories were $1.5 million to fund afterschool sports programs and $1.3 million on hiring staff including counselors, psychologists and special education aides. WCCUSD spent an average of $950,000 a year on core academics, including supplementing teacher salaries and buying textbooks or other curriculum. It spent the least on school safety, spending about $350,000 a year to hire custodians or school safety officers and the supplies they need.
The spending amounts vary, but the five priority areas remained the same.
WCCUSD also allocates some portion of the dollars to charter schools, an amount that has been gradually increased annually to about $2 million currently, as the number of students going to charter schools has increased.
How the money is spent in upcoming years, assuming it passes, is unlikely to change much because for more than 25 years, voters have been relatively consistent with their preferences.
“There are some additional (funding) areas that are named … and that comes from the polling that we do,” Sanders said. “For example, attracting and receiving high-quality teachers and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) education.”
A board-commissioned survey by Godbe Research found that if the measure went before voters today, about 65.8% of voters would say yes — about 1% less than the two-thirds majority needed.
The same survey also found that the community wants to see more investment in the arts, so the ballot language was changed to indicate that. It also was adjusted to include an emphasis on preparing students “for the changing economy.”
“We’re trying to keep the language in the ballot measure updated enough that it will be able to fund local priorities through the term of the measure (which is nine years),” Sanders said. “We want to make sure that in five years, seven years, eight years, the language in the tax will still be relevant to the things that we might want to be funding, or that the community priorities might apply.”
How a measure is written is critical because it defines where exactly dollars are allowed to be spent. Including the word “art” for example, means the district can then allocate funding for such programs, especially if and when grant funding for a current arts program comes to an end.
The current measure specifically says dollars will be used for “protecting core academics, science, music, arts and career technical programs that prepare students for the changing economy; attracting and retaining qualified teachers; and maintaining mental health services and counselors to support student success.”
How the parcel tax has funded libraries
In the last 10 years, the parcel tax has been used to fund at least 30 full-time librarian salaries districtwide — until 2024.
In 2015, WCCUSD had the equivalent of almost 40 full-time equivalent employees in specialties including elementary school librarians and media specialists. In 2025, there were 22 full-time equivalent employees.
The number decreased over the decade as educator salaries increased and the district’s budget tightened.
Last year, the school district cut library budgets even further, leaving elementary schools without a full-time librarian this year.
Tracy LaFreniere, a first grade teacher at Ellerhorst Elementary in Pinole, said her students now go to the library once every two weeks and can’t visit it at other times. She worries what the future could look like if Measure V isn’t renewed.
Helms Middle School librarian Jon Henry Evans said if Measure V doesn’t pass, his job is at risk.
“The measure funds us being here. If the measure is not renewed this school may no longer have a position for me, which would be really devastating for me, to be honest,” Evans told Richmondside. “But in addition to that, it also funds (buying) most of our books.”
A librarian can play a critical role in a school, not only in helping improve literacy but also in creating a culture of intellectual curiosity and community.
In Evan’s library, he applies for grants and secures various funding to buy things like bean bag chairs, a button maker, board games and a “take care station” that provides students with toiletries such as toothbrushes or hair combs.
He has also created a “library of things,” where students can check out items including a ukulele, a stop motion animation kit or a bird watching kit.
“They’re able to use these tools or these resources to explore hobbies or interests in ways that they might not be able to otherwise,” Evans told Richmondside. “We’re about supporting information exchange. We’re about supporting our community, but we don’t just do that through books anymore.”
He said the library this year is the busiest it has ever been, filled with students every lunch period.
Evans has been at Helms for 12 years. He initially taught English language development for six years but decided to get his library credential and switched roles in 2021.
“I realized the best thing I could do for my students was to get them to be readers,” Evans said. “All of these standards that we teach, all the content that we teach, it all matters. It’s all important. But reading gives the student the ability to learn these things for themselves … that’s kind of the number one thing that you can do to set a student up for future success.”
As a librarian, he said he tries to improve student reading by making sure they provide the books kids want to read. He also provides training for teachers and helps match books to a student’s particular interests to foster a love of reading.
“There’s a lot of things that we do all day,” Evans said. “For some of our elementary school teachers who split their time between sites, I don’t really know how they do it.”
“I don’t think I could maintain my collection or all of my programs if I weren’t here all day every day,” he continued. “But even with that, the funding that it takes to keep a library up and running is (not enough). We oftentimes find ourselves looking for alternate funding sources like donors. Many of us apply for grants. None of that happens if there’s not a school librarian to seek those funding opportunities.”
Less popular sports already thin on resources
Every year the district allocates about $1.5 million of the funding for afterschool sports. The dollars are evenly distributed among school sites, which then determine how to use them. It is among several sources of funding for afterschool programming. About half of the funding pays for coaches, and the other half is for gear, equipment and other needs.
However, even with dedicated funding, it’s still only just enough to provide the bare minimum for some sports, students and staff told Richmondside.
At De Anza High School, the cross country team, for example, appears to be hanging on by a thread. For weeks leading up to the season, the team did not have a coach. Students wear old mismatched jerseys, and parents subsidize costs for snacks, water and other race day necessities.
Fou Mikaio, the school’s athletic director, stepped up to coach the team herself because she couldn’t find anyone to fill the role. She said because the pay is low, it’s hard to recruit high quality coaches to train the students.
If Measure V isn’t renewed, she worries coaching pay will be cut or remain stagnant, making it even harder to hire coaches for all sports. It could also be more difficult to replace aging equipment, she said.
De Anza senior Daniel Akagi, a varsity cross country runner, said he canvassed for the measure, even though he’s graduating, because of how transformational it has been for him.
“I wasn’t really an active person my freshman year,” Akagi told Richmondside before a 2-mile race. “But when I started (in sophomore year), it made me be a more outgoing person, I got more fit, and also you get to meet new people from your team itself … I felt like I started to just explore the world.”
He said it worries him that underclassmen may not have the same opportunities,speculating that a sport like cross country could be the first to get cut when hard decisions need to be made.
He said without the renewal, it could also lead to other cuts at the school. Last year, the WCCUSD board voted to cut De Anza’s class schedule from seven to six classes a semester to balance a budget deficit. For students, that means fewer elective options and fewer Advanced Placement (AP) classes offered.
Senior Claire LaFreniere said the arts were impacted the most. Ceramics and AP art were cut from the schedule.
“Our teachers also just don’t have supplies,” said LaFreniere, who has been taking art classes all of high school. “With my art teacher, all the stuff that he has in his classroom, he buys himself, and it’s like all of it, like the paint, the brushes … I don’t think we’ve had new supplies in a while.”
The school’s band program was also at risk of being cut, but was saved at the eleventh-hour. However, it’s now an afterschool program, instead of an elective class.
“They have to practice outside of school because they don’t have room for their elective (with the schedule change),” LaFreniere said.
She said her brother’s friend who wanted to run cross country again this year, couldn’t because band practice was at the same time.
Akagi said he really hopes the community votes to renew the parcel tax. He was inspired to canvas through his work with the Richmond Fire Youth Academy (Richmond voters are also considering a sales tax to help fix the city’s fire stations.) After graduation, he plans to go to Contra Costa Community College and become a firefighter.
“If (you want kids) to plan to go to college, they should have better access to better honors classes, AP classes; have better sports equipment; things like that,” Akagi said. “These things help (students) be better, and make their college applications better.”
Editor’s note: Story was updated to reflect the average cost of the parcel tax of per-household based on the district’s calculations.
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