The Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education voted Tuesday to support Proposition 30, the California Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Proposition 30 would increase income taxes for people earning more than $250,000 for seven years, and would increase the sales tax by a quarter-cent for four years. It would guarantee public safety realignment funding and bring in an additional $6 billion in state revenues annually through 2018-19, according to SmartVoter.

School board president Susan Deacon said they were in good company for supporting this initiative — it’s endorsed by dozens of education, labor and community organizations throughout the state.

With millions of dollars in budget cuts for California and per-pupil spending ranked 47th in the country, “Proposition 30 is the only initiative that will prevent $6 million in trigger cuts and increase school funding by billions of dollars starting this year,” the board’s resolution reads.

The Board of Education later will consider supporting Proposition 31, which would establish two-year state budgets and new guidelines for the process.

Board members also approved a response to a Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report on truancy, which prompted school districts to implement truancy reduction programs this year.

The Santa Barbara Unified School District is establishing its own program, documenting its efforts and calculating the amount of money lost due to truancy in the 2011-12 school year. Since districts are funded based on daily attendance, empty seats translate to fewer dollars, which is another motivation for truancy reduction programs.

Truancy rates spiked after the county’s Truancy Intervention and Parent Accountability Program was eliminated during budget cuts in 2008. Instead of having the District Attorney’s Office manage a countywide program, each district is creating its own program with help from county agencies.

There are tiered levels of intervention that include notification letters sent to parents, mandatory after-school meetings for parents and students, truancy mediation team meetings and School Attendance Review Board meetings that could lead to enforcement efforts against students or their parents.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.