Esparto voters have until Tuesday to decide if the unincorporated area in rural Yolo County should follow the lead of affluent communities in the Bay Area and Davis that support their schools with parcel taxes.

Two-thirds of those voting in the all-mail election must approve Measure B, which calls for a $100 annual parcel tax on homes and rural properties in the Esparto Unified School District.

The measure would generate up to $300,000 a year for five years to help make up for big cuts in state education funding.

"I'm really doing a lot of praying this thing passes. It will be a small miracle if it does," said Jane Stallings, a member of the Esparto Board of Education and a leading proponent of the school tax.

If voters approve the measure, it would set a statewide precedent for school districts like Esparto, where farmers, farmworkers and blue-collar laborers make up much of the population.

Traditionally only voters in affluent areas such as Berkeley and Marin have approved school parcel taxes.

In the Sacramento region, there's just one community – the well-heeled university town of Davis – where voters have levied taxes on themselves to pay for schools.

Since 1983, only about 53 percent of proposed parcel taxes in California have passed, though the rate has increased in recent years, education experts say.

The Esparto district, which has three schools and about 1,100 students, has cut nearly $1.7 million from its $11 million budget, school officials said.

The district in recent years has laid off 12 percent of its teachers and aides who help English-language learners.

Summer school and some classes in science, history and languages were eliminated. The officials say the district can no longer afford to bus its sports teams to events.

Yolo County elections chief Freddie Oakley said her office sent out 2,789 ballots to voters in the Esparto school district, which stretches from the outskirts of Woodland to the Capay Valley.

So far, 754 ballots have been mailed, a return rate of about 27 percent.

A stand-alone parcel tax measure in Davis in May generated a 38 percent return rate. Voters there narrowly approved a $200 parcel tax for two years.

The new Davis tax came on top of $320 in parcel taxes that Davis homeowners were already paying.

Oakley, Yolo County's clerk-recorder, said Friday she expects a slew of last-minute ballots from Esparto.

"They're very community-oriented in Esparto, and people talk to their neighbors a lot," Oakley said. "I think the voting is waiting on some serious weekend coffee klatches."

Esparto school officials held two sparsely attended town hall meetings in June to help voters understand the ballot measure.

Some property owners worried their agricultural parcels would be taxed individually. But connected parcels can be grouped as one for tax purposes, board member Stallings said.

Some ranchers who own multiple nonadjacent parcels and would end up paying a $100 tax on each remain opposed to the measure, she said.

Senior citizens, 65 and over, could apply for a tax exemption.

The grass-roots campaign in Esparto has done without professional polling or paid campaign consultants, Stallings said.

Proponents have spent time calling their neighbors to encourage them to vote and answer questions.

The ballot measure is the best hope to fend off further cuts to classes and programs, she said.

"I just have to think it's going to pass," Stallings said. "We just had to try. It's our last ditch stand." Ballots in the all-mail election must be put in a drop box at the Esparto Regional Library, 17065 Yolo Ave., or brought to the Yolo County Elections Office, 625 Court St., Woodland, by 8 p.m. Tuesday.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Hudson Sangree, (916) 321-1191.

• Read more articles by Hudson Sangree