Jun 1, 2026

The vote is tomorrow

Ballots are due tomorrow. If yours is still on the kitchen counter, today is the day to drop it off. This post is short. The arguments are everywhere else on this site.

The case in three paragraphs

RVSD is structurally underfunded. The federal NCES data puts RVSD at $18,199 per pupil — bottom three in Marin County, and ranked 959th of 995 California districts on the LCFF base-grant metric. The structural cause is that RVSD oscillates between LCFF and basic-aid funding regimes and gets the floor of either. The current parcel tax — which voters have approved and renewed in 1993, 1997, 2005, 2012, and 2018 — is what makes RVSD’s bottom-of-the-state allocation work. It supplies about $4.8M per year, 16% of the district’s general fund, and it expires June 30, 2028.^[1]

The cost of failure is documented and severe. The Marin County Office of Education required RVSD to file a three-tier contingency plan as a condition of approving the FY 2025-26 budget. Tier 1 ($170K, already in motion) cuts middle-school stipends. Tier 2 ($1.04M, triggered if Measure H fails on June 2) cuts elementary PE, electives, special-ed and ELD coordinators, and adds a management furlough. Tier 3 ($3.1M, triggered if both June and November 2026 attempts fail) closes two of four elementary schools, cuts TK and kindergarten to half-days, and is followed by “likely state receivership” by August 2028 per Superintendent Tyler Graff. This is not campaign rhetoric — it’s an MCOE-supervised written plan filed in January 2026.^[2]

The cost of approval is recoverable. Measure H asks for $1,282 per parcel — about $107 per month for the typical homeowner, of which about $45/month is the increase portion. Seniors over 65 (and residents on SSI/SSDI) can opt out completely. The measure is restricted to teacher retention, class-size management, and STEM/reading/writing programs. It can’t fund administrators or pensions. It runs ten years and then expires unless voters approve a successor. Even at $1,282, RVSD homeowners pay less than Mill Valley ($1,520), Kentfield ($1,842), or Ross ($1,644) — and would still receive less per-pupil revenue than any of those districts.^[3]

That’s the case. We recommend a Yes vote.

Practical: returning your ballot

Deadline: 8:00 PM tomorrow, June 2, 2026.

By mail: Sign the back of the envelope. Postage is prepaid. Drop in any USPS mailbox before the last pickup tomorrow. A ballot postmarked tomorrow can arrive up to 7 days late and still count.

By drop box: Open until 8:00 PM tomorrow at:

Fairfax Town Hall, 142 Bolinas Road, Fairfax
San Anselmo Town Hall, 525 San Anselmo Avenue, San Anselmo
San Anselmo Library, 110 Tunstead Avenue, San Anselmo
Marin County Civic Center, Room 121, 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael

Full and current list at the Marin County Elections Department.

In person: Vote centers open today and tomorrow at the same locations. Same-day registration is available at the Civic Center for voters not already registered.

A thank-you

This site started in late April when a few of us in San Anselmo and Fairfax sat down to figure out how we felt about Measure H, hit the familiar problem of campaign sites leading with their conclusions, and decided to write our own. Six weeks and 36 posts later, here we are.

The site is not a campaign. We aren’t paid by anyone, we aren’t affiliated with the district or the Yes committee, and we aren’t a 501(c)(4). We’re neighbors. We support a Yes vote and we’ve been honest about that throughout. We’ve also tried to represent the No case fairly — if you’ve read the case for No and feel we mischaracterized any opposition arguments, tell us and we’ll fix it.

If you’ve engaged with this site this spring — whether you’ve ended up voting Yes, voting No, or you’re still working through it — thank you. The version of local civic life where neighbors take the time to think carefully about complicated decisions, and to talk to each other rather than past each other, is the version that’s worth keeping. That’s part of what’s at stake on Measure H — the kind of community that has a parcel tax in the first place is one where neighbors are willing to invest in shared things.

We’ll see you at the dog park, on San Anselmo Avenue, in line at Fairfax Coffee Roastery, or at White Hill back-to-school night. Whatever happens tomorrow, that part of Ross Valley is what we’re here for.

One last thing

If you’re a senior over 65 and you’ve been planning to vote No because you don’t want to pay $1,282 per parcel, please read our post on the senior exemption before you fill out the ballot. Many older homeowners qualify for a permanent exemption — meaning $0 owed on Measure H regardless of how the vote goes — and don’t realize they can apply. The exemption is administrative and doesn’t depend on your vote.

If you’re an undecided voter still working through it, the home page has the ten-minute version, and the case for Yes and the case for No have the longer versions of each side. Read both. Make your call.

If you’ve decided Yes: please return your ballot today, and please talk to one neighbor who hasn’t decided yet. Measure H is winnable and losable; it depends on whether the institutional consensus on the Yes side gets translated into actual ballots returned. The hardest votes to count are the ones still on the kitchen counter on June 2.

That’s why we recommend a Yes vote on Measure H. Thanks for reading.

— Your neighbors at sananselmofairfaxmeasureh.org

Sources

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