As the Milpitas Unified School District eyes a possible $6.5 million deficit in two fiscal years, it will ask voters within its boundaries in June to approve an annual tax to help reduce cuts to education.

At its Tuesday board meeting, Milpitas Unified’s board of directors unanimously passed a resolution that would put a parcel tax initiative — $84 a year for five years — on the June 8 election ballot. It would have to receive at least a two-thirds vote before the tax would start, something board vice president Michael Mendizabal said could be tricky.

“We’re going to have to educate people,” he said. “We’ll get the reason for the need out there so people trust us. It’ll be a hard one.”

This fiscal year, Mendizabal said the district is fine financially, but only because of federal stimulus money. Next fiscal year, he said Milpitas Unified would balance the books with money in reserves.

That third fiscal year is the problem, though. Prior to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget update earlier this month, Mendizabal said the district was looking at a potential $1.7 million deficit for that year. After the governor laid out his budget plans for education, Milpitas Unified projected figures of about $6.5 million in the red.

While cuts will be made, Mendizabal said the roughly 9,800-student district felt it was best to turn to the public to see if residents wanted to ease the burden. He said Milpitas Unified has cut about $8 million in the last five years, laying off employees and bumping up class sizes.

“We thought we should go to the public and say, ‘Are these the kinds of schools you want?” Mendizabal said. “The parents are very concerned and they don’t want that. The people in the community need to look at it too. If you have a good school district, it tends to keep property values up in the area.”

If voters approve of the measure, it would give the schools about $1.5 million a year, which Mendizabal said would go toward math and science programs and keeping class sizes down.

Milpitas Unified would have to pay about $84,000 from the building fund, board documents show, to the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters for the measure to get on the ballot.

Mendizabal said that there would be an exemption for property owners over 65, something he said senior citizens in the area had worried about.

There will also be a committee making sure the money goes where it’s supposed to, Mendizabal said. The district would start to receive the money in December, he said, if the measure passes.

“It’ll help us be able to keep some things,” Mendizabal said. “We will honor it and put the money towards math and science classes and try to keep those going.”

Contact MilpitasInfo.com reporter Justin Lafferty at justin@milpitasinfo.com