Pixar Cuts School Funding
Pixar has severely curtailed its corporate support for Emeryville schools over the last two years according to officials at the Emery Education Fund. The Fund, a local non-profit tasked with shepherding donations to the schools, said Pixar had for several years held pre-release screenings of its new movies as a fundraiser for the Emery Unified School District. Pixar, now a subsidiary of Disney Inc., discontinued these screenings two years ago, yet it now pre-screens films as charitable benefits for other school districts and non-profits outside of Emeryville.
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| Brave New World? Nothing for Emeryville's schools again this year. |
Phillip Powell, Emery Ed Fund's Interim Executive Director told the Tattler the pre-screenings have historically been a large part of the Emery Ed Fund, netting over $100,000 for Emeryville schools in 2010, the last time Pixar cooperated. "Normally Pixar pre-releases happen in May" Mr Powell said after he acknowledged it appears Emery has been skipped again. For its part, this year Pixar has offered a charity pre-screening of its new film, Brave for the educational non-profit corporation College Track. Emery's School Superintendent, Debbra Lindo, sits on the Board of Directors of College Track.
In addition to ending its charitable giving to Emeryville Schools, Pixar is seeking a reduction in how much it owes in property taxes---a large portion of which normally flows into our classrooms. Reducing the company's tax liability is a goal being sought on various fronts by the company's corporate leaders in Burbank and their brigade of tax attorneys. City council members have noted that Pixar managed to sharply trim its business taxes that also accrue to Emeryville. Disney/Pixar reported $1.46 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year. Granted, Pixar is now just one division a conglomerate. Disney, which paid about $7 billion for Pixar, was billed a total of $8000 in business taxes on its Emeryville campus and all Pixar operations. A low tax take for City Hall is courtesy of a cap on business taxes, established thanks to the effective lobbying efforts of the Emeryville Chamber of Commerce. The cap is a massive annual gift to Emeryville's largest companies from City Hall making any profits above the cap tax free. Its a scheme that enables Pixar to pay Emeryville at a far lower rate than other businesses here, essentially forcing small businesses to subsidize Disney's tax cut
Sadly, Disney/Pixar isn't alone in dialing back its commitment to the community that welcomed them with open arms. Another large firm, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis set up an annual $5000 scholarship to help cover college tuition for science majors graduating from Emery High School. Novartis donated $100,000 for the scholarship fund in 2006.
Emery was shut out of last year's Pixar film pre-screening, Cars 2. The Park Avenue corporation instead offered the film as a philanthropic fund raising device elsewhere.
Emery was shut out of last year's Pixar film pre-screening, Cars 2. The Park Avenue corporation instead offered the film as a philanthropic fund raising device elsewhere.
The Walt Disney Corporation bought Pixar in 2006 in an all stock transaction worth $7.4 billion and is said to be worth in excess of $75 billion.
