MUSD Enrollment Stabilizes as New School Year Begins; Economic Picture Brightens Just a Bit

Years of steady attendance declines appear to be ending, but budget deficits forecast to continue; housing lawsuit drags on; a summary of local election races and tools for voters; West Nile spraying

The Martinez Unified School District began the 2024-25 with a total enrollment of 3,781 students, according to a report that will be discussed at Monday’s board meeting, nearly identical to its 2023-24 enrollment figure of 3,783.

This is good news for the district as it seeks to stem years of declining enrollment that followed the COVID-19 pandemic and has weighed on its Average Daily Attendance (ADA) revenues; MUSD enrolled 4,159 students during the 2019-2020 school year.

It’s also an improvement over the the 3,738 students that the district projected enrolling for 2024-25 in its June budget update. The district is getting a boost from interdistrict transfers, with 44 elementary (grades TK-5) students residing within the boundaries of other districts attending MUSD and 73 at the secondary (grades 6-12) level.

However, as Chief Business Official Andy Cannon explained to the school board on Aug. 12, the stabilizing enrollment picture does not materially change the ongoing budget deficit facing the district.

Cannon told board members that “nothing has changed about deficit spending.” The district is anticipating deficit spending of $4.1 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year, $3.2 million for 2025-26, and $2.6 million for 2026-27.

The district’s enrollment breakdown by grade level can be seen in the chart below.

As Cannon noted during his presentation, enrollment and attendance challenges are not unique to MUSD. He presented a chart showing a steady decline in enrollment statewide in recent years, an issue he tied specifically to a lack of housing and high housing costs.

“Right now, the No. 1 reason folks say they are leaving the state of California is over housing and the cost,” Cannon said, adding that secondary reasons for the exodus have been jobs and family considerations.

Housing costs and values continue to rise in Martinez, as a recent announcement from City Hall attests, though whether that’s a good or bad thing may be in the eyes of the beholder. Although the the negative impact of rising housing costs on school district enrollment and revenues is clear to see, the city announcement touted a “record-breaking year for property values in Martinez,” with the 6.1% increase in 2024 marking the highest jump in Contra Costa County, according to data collected for the city by the firm HdL Coren & Cone. The city news release trumpeted “a remarkable three-year run,” with property values increasing a combined 17.6% from 2021 to 2024.

“This increase in property values shows that people are taking a fresh look at Martinez, and they like what they see and want to buy into our community,” Mayor Brianne Zorn said in the announcement. “Martinez is still one of the most affordable cities in the Bay Area, and these numbers show we also have strong value and opportunities for growth.”

But over at the school district offices, Cannon painted a less rosy picture of increased home valuations as they pertain to school district enrollment and finances, not only in Martinez but throughout the state, saying construction is not meeting housing needs. “For people to get into entry-level homes is not as easy as it once was.”

That goes for families with school-age children who have been leaving the state in droves in recent years. The enrollment chart that Cannon shared at the meeting showed a precipitous decline in K-12 enrollment throughout the state starting in 2020, with the declines expected to continue well into the next decade.

“Forecasts continue to look at a decline of more than 6% over the next five years in the state of California,” Cannon said. “As California goes, we’re seeing revenues stay the same or go up for education, which is a positive thing, but we’re seeing less students.”

Cannon also addressed the broader economic picture for the state budget — and school revenues — at the Aug. 12 board meeting, saying things are starting to trend in the right direction.

“We’re looking at a slow growth in the economy for 2024-25,” Cannon told the board. “Nothing too dramatic, but it is trending in the positive direction. Over the next two years, we should be seeing steady growth.”

He did note, however, that significant risks and unknowns continue to cloud the economic picture, including issues around inflation, interest rates, stock market performance and the November elections.

He said that while personal income tax revenues are anticipated to increase statewide, a big factor for the school funding outlook is what happens in the stock market, specifically the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

“We are heavily dependent as a state on the stock market; our revenue and the projection of our revenue aligns well to the S&P,” he said. “That’s because many of the wealthiest Californians who make up personal income tax or pay capital gains tax are doing so because of the stock market.

“In general, as the stock market goes, the California budget goes. If the stock market is rising and folks are doing really well, you’ll see an increase in the education budget. When it starts to go down, you see likewise, the education budget decrease.”

Much of the state’s current budget challenges, which have impacted education funding, can be traced to 2022, when the S&P 500 fell by by 18.1%. But the index has bounced back strongly since, gaining 26.3% last year and 19.2% so far this year, which should boost the capital gains tax revenues that Cannon alluded to.

Both the state and MUSD have had to draw significantly from their rainy day funds to address the financial headwinds in recent years, leaving little cushion should the state economy take a turn for the worse.

“If we have another swing in the economy, we don’t have the reserves anymore to be able to combat that,” he said, referring to state reserves from the Proposition 98 school funding formula.

The full agenda for Monday evening’s school board meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m., can be found at the following link: https://simbli.eboardsolutions.com/SB_Meetings/ViewMeeting.aspx?S=36030321&MID=32421

Housing lawsuit drags on

As with many cities up and down the state, the lack of progress in creating affordable housing in Martinez has been the subject of intense discussion and debate in recent years, including the process of crafting a new Housing Element for the 2023-31 cycle designed to guide housing growth. The city was among several in the Bay Area sued by the nonprofit California Housing Defense Fund (CalHDF) last year over their failure to adopt their Housing Element by the state-mandated deadline and what CalHDF called a “long history of exclusionary housing practices,” among other allegations of slow-walking housing construction.

Although the city has since adopted its Housing Element and begun new programs to spur housing growth, the lawsuit between CalHDF and Martinez continues to play out in Contra Costa County Superior Court, with attorneys for both sides filing a flurry of motions and responses on the question of how much each side will ultimately pay in attorney’s fees and court costs to settle the matter (the lawsuit itself is moot now that the Housing Element has been completed). More hearings on the suit, which was filed in February 2023, are scheduled for October. Meanwhile, CalHDF settled its suit against the city of Pleasant Hill over the same issue earlier this year.

An item appeared on the City Council meeting consent calendar on Oct. 4, 2023, asking the council to approve a settlement with CHDF in which the city would have paid $8,600 to CalHDF “for reimbursement of reasonable attorney’s fees and cost of lawsuit.” But for whatever reason, the settlement proposal was pulled from the meeting agenda, and nearly a year (and scores of court filings) later, the case continues.

What voters need to know about local races

Here is a quick summary of the competitive local races and measures that Martinez voters will see on their ballots in the Nov. 5 election (for City Council and School Board races, only the voters who live in the specific districts being contested will vote in those races).

Martinez City Council, District 2

Dylan Radke

Greg Young

Martinez Unified School Board, Area 1

Carlos Melendez (incumbent)

Logan Campbell

Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, District 5

Shanelle Scales-Preston

Mike Barbanica

Contra Costa County Board of Education, Area 3

Yazmin Llamas

Vicki Gordon

Measure O

Martinez Unified School District bond measure to modernize/construct school facilities

A complete list of all the candidates for local office in Contra Costa County, including those in non-competitive races where only one person filed to run for the seat, can be found at the following link: https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/8-16-24_candidatelistsummary.pdf

A complete list and description of all local measures in Contra Costa County, including MUSD’s Measure O, can be found at the following link: https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/24Nov5_Measure-Wording-List.pdf

For those who want to look up their voter registration status, districts/trustee areas in which they live, current elected officials and more voting information, the county Elections Office provides a nifty online tool. It can be accessed at the following link: https://www.contracostavote.gov/elections/voter-registration/my-voting-information/#VoterLookupandSampleBallotSearch

A few other tools/resources that voters will find handy as the election season unfolds:

City of Martinez General Municipal Election webpage: https://www.cityofmartinez.org/government/city-clerk/general-election-2024

Contra Costa County Nov. 5 Elections webpage: https://www.contracostavote.gov/election/november-5-2024-presidential-general-election/#Election

City of Martinez Campaign Disclosure Forms and Filings portal: https://www.cityofmartinez.org/government/city-clerk/fppc-reporting

Note: This will be the first city election in which members of the public can look up campaign finance filings online without having to request them from the City Clerk’s Office, a huge gain for the city’s voters and the cause of election transparency. This allows voters to see which individuals and special interest organizations are contributing directly to campaigns, along with the independent expenditures of political action committees.

Contra Costa County Public Portal for Campaign Finance Disclosure: https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=CCC

Note: Use this site to look up campaign finance filings for county, special district and local school board races.

Campaign finance search engine for state-level races: https://powersearch.sos.ca.gov/

Note: Use this site to look up campaign finance contributions for state legislative and other state-level offices, such as California Assembly and California Senate.

West Nile spraying

The Contra Costa County Mosquito & Vector Control District treated an area of Martinez for mosquitos on Friday evening, according to a news release from the district. The area treated with “truck-mounted, ultra-low volume equipment” was bordered on the north by the San Joaquin River; on the south by Pacheco Blvd; on the east by Pacheco Creek; and on the west by Embarcadero St.

The pesticide Zenivex E4 RTU was used to control for adult mosquitos in response to the “high number of mosquitoes and the detection of West Nile virus in the area.”

The district reported last week that it had trapped mosquitos in Martinez that tested positive for West Nile. A Contra Costa County resident died in July after contracting West Nile, the first death related to the virus reported in the county since 2006.

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