Overhead & net revenue

Administrative drag between gross levy and net usable revenue: collection fee, oversight costs, and election amortization.

Summary

For a Harmony USD parcel tax targeting roughly $300,000/year gross, three cost items reduce net usable revenue. The collection fee is the most precisely estimable; the others depend on district choices about measure design and election timing.

1. Sonoma County collection fee

Sonoma County's Auditor-Controller-Treasurer-Tax Collector (ACTTC) may charge a cost-recovery fee for placing charges on the county tax roll. A 2022 direct-charge agreement with the Graton Community Services District caps that fee at 0.85% of the annual levy. Applied to a $300,000 gross levy:

$300,000 × 0.0085 = $2,550/year

The comparable agreement for Harmony USD may differ, but 0.85% is the best available public benchmark. The revenue explorer uses this as the default collection fee rate; adjust it if Harmony negotiates a different agreement with ACTTC.

What ACTTC does not do

Sonoma County's direct-charge instructions note that ACTTC does not maintain exemption records. Exemption eligibility must be determined and authorized by the district itself. That means the district (or its contractor) must:

• Receive and verify exemption applications (age 65+, SSI, SSDI);
• Transmit the list of approved exemptions to ACTTC annually before the certification deadline; and
• Post exemption information on the county website as required by AB 2458.

This exemption-administration burden is a real staff cost, but it is typically not large enough to quantify separately from the general oversight budget.

2. Oversight, reporting, and audit costs

Government Code §50075.1 and §50075.3 require every school parcel tax measure to state its specific purposes, restrict spending to those purposes, maintain a segregated account, and produce an annual fiscal-officer report. Those statutory requirements are the floor. Districts commonly add a voluntary citizens' oversight committee, and some measures promise an independent financial audit. The cost depends entirely on which level of oversight is locked into the ballot language.

The revenue explorer defaults to $5,000/year for oversight and reporting — a reasonable midpoint. Adjust this in the Overhead inputs if the measure design is leaner or heavier.

3. Election cost (amortized)

Election costs vary substantially depending on whether the measure appears on a consolidated statewide election or a standalone special election. A West Sonoma County school parcel-tax discussion reported that a poll alone could cost ~$6,500, with the actual election potentially running "tens of thousands of dollars" borne by the district. Harmony's March 2024 bond measure appeared on a statewide primary ballot — the cheaper type of context.

Amortization over the measure term

The table below shows the annualized election drag as a percentage of a $300,000 gross levy, for several election cost scenarios and measure terms.

The revenue explorer defaults to $25,000 election cost over an 8-year term ($3,125/year). For a consolidated election this is conservative; for a standalone special election it would be optimistic.

4. Approval threshold

A school-district parcel tax is a special tax. California Constitution Article XIII C §2(d) requires any local special tax to be approved by two-thirds of voters. A measure that produces $300,000/year on paper must first clear a 66.67% supermajority threshold, which argues for:

• A simple, clearly explained structure (flat per-parcel or uniform per-sqft with cap);
• A modest rate that does not raise large-parcel anxiety;
• Exemptions for seniors and disabled taxpayers if politically useful (they are now expressly authorized by statute); and
• No administrative language that looks like bureaucratic bloat — oversight committees should be described as volunteer and low-cost.

5. Planning scenarios

All figures below assume a $300,000 gross levy and the Measure B mirror exemption regime (age/disability and contiguous common ownership on).

How overhead is applied in the model

The revenue explorer and revenue_model.py automatically apply a best-guess overhead deduction to every projection. All displayed revenue figures are net — you are seeing what the district would actually have available to spend, not the gross levy. The gross is shown in smaller text below the main number in the explorer.

The best-guess function uses three components derived from what the model already knows — no user configuration is required:

Collection fee:       0.85% × gross revenue       (Graton CSD benchmark)
Admin/oversight:      $1,500 + $0.50/paying parcel (floor $1,500; cap $8,000)
Election amortized:   $25,000 ÷ 8 years = $3,125/yr

For ~2,700 paying parcels at $300k gross:
  Collection fee:   ~$2,550
  Admin:            ~$2,850  ($1,500 + $0.50 × 2,700)
  Election:         ~$3,125
  Total overhead:   ~$8,525  (≈2.8% of gross)
  Net revenue:      ~$291,475

The planning scenarios in the table above remain useful for sensitivity analysis — they show what net revenue would look like under different audit-regime and election-cost assumptions, which the best-guess function holds constant.

Sources

1. Sonoma County ACTTC, Instructions for Submitting Direct Charges — confirms cost recovery fee and that ACTTC does not administer exemptions.
2. Graton CSD direct-charge agreement (2022) — caps collection fee at 0.85% of annual levy; used as benchmark for Harmony USD estimate.
3. Government Code §50075.1 — special-tax accountability requirements (specific purposes, segregated account, annual report).
4. Government Code §50075.3 — fiscal-officer annual report requirement.
5. Healdsburg Tribune, WSCUHSD board approves parcel tax poll amid debate — poll cost ~$6,500; election cost "tens of thousands" for a district of similar size.
6. Sonoma County Registrar of Voters, Election Costs — cost components for county-administered elections.
7. California Constitution Article XIII C §2(d) — two-thirds approval requirement for local special taxes.