Portola Valley School District Parcel Tax Passing: Early Results

PORTOLA VALLEY, CA — A ballot measure for a parcel tax that would provide nearly $1 million per year for the Portola Valley School District is passing, preliminary results posted on Election Night indicate.

Measure S requires two-thirds of the vote to pass and as of Tuesday night, 75 percent of voters supported the measure. All votes were cast by mail, and 2,317 ballots were cast as of Tuesday. There are 5,478 registered voters in the district.

If the trend holds, the measure will raise $471 per parcel annually through 2029 to support the school district of about 500 students.

This is the district’s second attempt at passing at parcel tax after an attempt to renew the expiring current tax failed last year. That measure sought $581 per parcel.

The district has used the current parcel tax, which expires in June and raises about $1.2 million a year to retain teachers and maintain programs and small class sizes.

District Chief Business Officer Connie Ngo told the Almanac last month that the district decided to reduce the tax per parcel this time around because it has made cuts of about $1.3 million over the last three years and it was a decision that reflected what the community desired.

The district, which serves the communities of Portola Valley and Woodside, has two schools — Ormondale School (Grades K-3) and Corte Madera School (Grades 4-8).

It is unclear how many ballots are left to count, but according to the San Mateo County registrar’s website, the current results do not reflect vote by mail ballots received after Tuesday, ballots dropped off at vote centers or conditional voter registration or provisional ballots. All voting was done by mail.

The next update on the vote tally will be Friday at 4:30 p.m., according to the registrar.