May 9, 2026

Six things that changed between May 2025 and Measure H

In May 2025, RVSD’s previous parcel-tax measure — also called Measure E, just an earlier one — got 62.53% Yes with 4,390 votes for and 2,631 against. It needed 66.67%. It fell short.^[1]

The most-cited opposition argument against Measure H is “voters already said no in 2025.” The factual record is more complicated than that, and the practical lesson the board took from May 2025 is what produced Measure H. Here are the six concrete things that changed.

1. Flat per-parcel rate, not per-square-foot

The 2025 Measure E used a per-square-foot formula: 52¢ per building square foot on improved parcels, plus $95 per unimproved parcel.^[2] The intent was progressive — bigger properties pay more — but the result was confusing for voters trying to figure out what they’d actually owe, and it landed disproportionately on owners of larger homes who often felt singled out.

CST cited the per-square-foot structure as one of its main objections to the 2025 measure. In our post on the case for No, we noted that this was a credible procedural complaint, not just a political one.

Measure H reverts to a flat per-parcel structure: $1,282 per parcel, period.^[3] Every taxable parcel pays the same. This matches what every other Marin K-8 district uses except Sausalito Marin City. It’s simpler. It’s what voters who took issue with the 2025 mechanism asked for.

2. Plain ballot language

The 2025 measure’s ballot title made the renewal-and-increase structure ambiguous. Some voters said they thought they were voting on a renewal of the existing tax, not a renewal plus an increase. The CST critique that voters “didn’t have the financial appetite for a tax that’s so big” wasn’t entirely a dollar-amount critique — part of it was that the dollar amount wasn’t clear from the ballot text itself.

Measure H’s ballot question puts the dollar figures up front. The renewal portion ($742) and the increase portion ($540) are stated explicitly, with the resulting total ($1,282) and the annual revenue ($8.6M) both surfaced.^[3] No voter who reads the question can be confused about the structure.

3. Regular statewide ballot, not a costly special election

The 2025 measure went to a vote-by-mail-only special election on May 6, 2025.^[2] Special elections are expensive — Marin County charged the district roughly $700,000 to administer that one — and voters were rightly annoyed at being asked to fund a tax measure that was itself costing the taxpayer money to put on the ballot.

Measure H is on the regular June 2, 2026 statewide primary.^[3] No special-election cost. Higher turnout (California primaries typically run 50–60% in Marin, against the 38% turnout the May 2025 special drew). And no separate election to remember.

This was the most concrete CST procedural complaint about Measure E, and the district fixed it.

4. Senior exemption preserved — and existing exemptees roll over

Some voters in 2025 worried that a structural change to the parcel tax would invalidate their existing senior exemption and require them to re-paper.

Measure H explicitly preserves the existing senior exemption and rolls over existing exemptees automatically.^[3] Homeowners 65 or older who already have an exemption don’t need to do anything. New 65+ homeowners — and residents on SSI or SSDI who meet federal income guidelines — can apply once and the exemption is permanent.

We have a separate post on the senior exemption covering the application process in detail.

5. Independent oversight, codified

The 2025 Measure E included an oversight provision; Measure H carries it forward and reinforces it. The measure requires an independent citizens’ oversight committee that conducts annual public expenditure review.^[3] The mechanism is the same one that has overseen RVSD’s existing parcel tax for 33 years across six measures, with no successful court challenge alleging misuse.

We have a separate post on what oversight looks like in practice.

6. No money for administrators or pensions, codified

A specific CST critique of past measures was that parcel-tax money was effectively underwriting administrator compensation and pension contributions through the fungibility of district general-fund money.

Measure H explicitly bars its funds from administrator salaries and from pensions.^[3] The restriction is in the operative ballot text, enforceable in court, and reviewable by the oversight committee.

The fungibility critique still has some force as an abstract argument — money is fungible everywhere — but the legal restriction is real and has teeth. (We address the fungibility argument more fully on our case for No page and in our oversight post.)

What the polling tells us about whether this matters

The interesting evidence is that the structural changes between Measure E and Measure H didn’t move the polling number very much — Godbe found ~65% favorability for Measure H, similar to what the firm’s pre-2025 polling showed for Measure E.^[4]

Two ways to read that:

Pessimistic read (opposition framing): the structural changes are window dressing; voters who said no will say no again.

Realistic read: the dollar amount isn’t the binding constraint on Yes support. Godbe explicitly tested lower-cost variants and found “those did not move the needle of favorability.”^[4] Voters who oppose the measure aren’t going to flip if the ask shrinks; voters who support it would have supported either version. The structural changes — flat per-parcel, plain ballot language, regular ballot, oversight — address the procedural complaints from 2025. They don’t change the persuasion math, but they do remove respectable procedural reasons for someone who’d otherwise vote Yes to vote No.

The 73% approval-of-management number from the same poll is the persuasion space.^[4] The structural changes give that 73% a Measure H they can vote for without procedural reservations.

Our read

The board listened to the 2025 result. Every concrete procedural critique — per-square-foot formula, ambiguous ballot language, special-election cost, oversight, restricted uses — got addressed in Measure H’s design. What didn’t get adjusted was the dollar amount, because the polling found the dollar amount isn’t what’s keeping support below 66.67%.

That’s a defensible call. We’d rather see the board respond to actual evidence than to a campaign-based intuition about what voters want.

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

Sources

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