Linda Henigin wants to bring back the parcel tax that Palo Alto voters rejected on June 2 and she's running for school board to do it.

Henigin, 56, officially filed her candidacy for the Palo Alto Unified School District Board of Education on Saturday, July 25, according to the Santa Clara County Elections Office. She is the first candidate to complete her paperwork in a race for two open seats being vacated by board members Shounak Dharap and Shana Segal.

Two other residents, Avery Wang and John Craig, have said they plan to run but had not submitted their completed forms as of Monday, July 27, the elections office confirmed.

The platform: teacher pay and a new parcel tax

Henigin told the PA Daily Post she favors paying teachers as much as the district can afford and said PAUSD should not be hoarding money for its own sake. If elected, she wants to put a new parcel tax before voters next spring.

"We need to build trust with our community and be really clear about what it would be spent on, and why it's necessary," Henigin told the Post.

That pitch comes with a steep financial backdrop. The board unanimously approved a $369 million budget on Wednesday, June 17, along with a teacher contract providing a 5% raise for the 2025-26 school year, a 5.4% raise for 2026-27, and two $5,000 cash bonuses. Those contracts will drain the district's reserves from $104.1 million to a projected $24.8 million by the end of the coming school year, according to district budget documents.

At a Tuesday, June 2 board meeting, Chief Business Officer Charen Yu warned that without changes to ongoing expenses like staffing, the district would not make its minimum state requirements.

A parcel tax that fell short

Voters rejected Measure B on Tuesday, June 2, with 62.4% voting yes, according to EdSource. That fell about four points short of the two-thirds supermajority California requires for parcel taxes. It was PAUSD's first parcel tax defeat in 22 years.

Measure B would have replaced the existing $905-per-parcel tax, which expires in June 2027, with an $800-per-parcel levy and raised roughly $14.5 million annually for teacher salaries and programs.

Henigin's background

A Duveneck Elementary School aide and board member of Pathwise (formerly DreamCatchers), a nonprofit offering free after-school programs to middle schoolers, Henigin holds a master's degree from Bank Street College of Education in New York and taught elementary school in New Jersey from 2003 to 2007. She also serves on the executive board of the Palo Alto Council of PTAs.

Henigin spoke during public comment at the board's Tuesday, June 16 meeting on the superintendent contract item, according to board minutes. The board approved a memorandum of understanding with Pathwise at that same meeting.

What's next

The filing deadline for the PAUSD board race is Wednesday, August 12. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, with mail-in ballots expected to arrive in October. No board vote on a spring 2027 parcel tax measure has been scheduled.