When is a ‘Temporary’ Tax Not Temporary?

Next year is an election year, and we can hear the tax increase war drums pounding already.

The most recent beat comes from the California Teacher’s Association, hammering out their message in favor of making the “temporary” tax increase first passed in 2012 and extended in 2016, permanent.  Once again proving the case that there is nothing so eternal as a temporary tax increase.

Why? Because, of course, we need to funnel more money into the state’s K12 education system to avoid “devastating cuts to schools, children’s healthcare, and other essential services.” We all “know” that education is underfunded. Who could possibly vote against increasing the money available to educate kids?

In reality, actual numbers show K12 education spending has risen dramatically during this time. The state maintains a database of school budget data for each district, called the Standard Accounting Code Structure (or “SACS”) database. If we look at data for the last decade, we see per student spending rising from $11,181 in 2015 to $24,222 in 2024. Final SACS numbers for 2025 are not yet available, but budget documents show the expected number to be around $25,173.

That’s an increase of $13,992, 125.14%, or 8.45% per year. During that time inflation has increased at a rate of about 3.6% per year, meaning school spending has increased at a rate almost 2 ½ times faster than inflation. 

Yet academic performance has been miserable. In 2025, only 49% of our kids were judged proficient in English, and a miserable 37% proficient in Math. 

Obviously simply spending more money is not the answer. At the current rates, with average class sizes approaching 30 that gives our education system $755,190 per classroom to educate our kids.  Does any rational person think three quarters of a million dollars per class is simply not enough?

But instead of using their expertise in education to craft solutions that address the real problem with the vast amount of money they have, we see the union instead just advocating for “more money.” Despite the fact that we’ve done that experiment and it clearly does not work.

So…. Why would the union simply tell us “more money” is the answer, when any rational Californian can see that hasn’t worked?

During that same period one thing has indeed skyrocketed, also at rates exceeding inflation, and that’s the pay and benefits for the people involved in education.  There is no more powerful motive in human nature than personal financial benefit, so we can clearly see why the CTE would advocate for more money.

In 2012, when this “temporary” tax was first passed, the median total compensation (including the cost of benefits) of a full-time certificated employee (generally teachers) was $88,470. School administrators had a median of $120,183.

In 2024, from actual pay records obtained by Transparent California using public records requests, we see the number is now $151,966 for full-time certificated employees and $213,407 for administrative employees. While collection is not yet complete, we have data from districts educating almost 50% of our kids – with 12,000 administrative pay records and 125,000 certificated.  Those numbers may change a bit as we gather more data, but they are unlikely to be significantly different in the end.

These are increases of 4.61% and 4.90% per year, respectively.  Again, exceeding inflation by about 25%.  In 2015, the total salary spending (again, according to the SACS database) was $36 billion.  In 2024 that number was $57 billion. Simply keeping wage growth at the rate of inflation would have freed up about $6 billion dollars.  Coincidentally, right in the range the CTA thinks we should increase taxes.

So, what is the tax increase money really for?  To improve education, or to improve the compensation of education employees?

The numbers seem pretty clear, and in 2026 it will be up to the taxpayers to decide how important they feel that is.