Californians will vote on the largest education construction bond measure in the state’s history on March 3.
“This is a historic down payment for safer and healthier school buildings across every level of education, and something that will tangibly benefit millions of Californians for generations to come,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday at the bill-signing ceremony in a Sacramento school.
Assembly Bill 48 asks voters to approve $15 billion of general obligation bonds. If they agree, the measure will allocate $9 billion for K-12 schools and split $6 billion between community colleges, the California State University system and University of California campuses.
It will be a return to the well for state school bonds; of the $9 billion voters approved in Proposition 51 in 2016, $4.8 billion in bond authority remains, but the state has received more than $5 billion in applications from school districts for that money, according to a Senate Governance and Finance Committee
California voters approved state school bond measures nearly every two years from 1982 through 2006 with voters only rejecting one in 1994, according to the Senate analysis. From 1996 through 2016, voters supported six measures totaling $57.2 billion with amounts on individual measures varying from $2.1 billion to $12.15 billion.
School construction advocates have complained since Proposition 51 was approved about the speed at which the state was issuing the bonds that match local school district bonds to help modernize and construct new school buildings.
The process has accelerated since Newsom took office in January, said Dave Walrath, legislative advocate for the California Coalition for Adequate School Housing and president of Murdoch, Walrath & Holmes, Inc.
“There is nothing in the bill that speeds up the allocation process, but this governor seems much more willing to go ahead with the apportionment and allocation of funds,” Walrath said.
Walrath pointed to the $1.5 billion for school construction that Newsom included in this year’s budget.
Former Gov. Jerry Brown came out against the previous school bond measure and slowed bond sales, saying the Legislature needed to establish better auditing procedures for the state school bond program. He also argued that the system was stacked against smaller and poorer school districts receiving school construction money — an issue that A.B. 48 takes into account.
“What I am particularly proud of is the focus on equity,” Newsom said. “As I traveled across the state over the past two years touring schools, I can’t tell you how often I heard from folks, particularly in the Central Valley, who felt they were being left behind.”
The measure prioritizes projects to address mold, remove lead from fixtures and to make buildings safe in the case of earthquakes and at districts facing severe overcrowding, Newsom said. It increases the state’s share in its match for low-wealth districts to 55% from 50% for new construction and to 65% from 60% for modernization projects.
The act requires the board to adopt regulations for determining the amount of funding and eligibility and prioritization of funding that school districts with a financial hardship may receive from bond acts for construction, modernization or relocation assistance.
In addition to the state bond authorization, the measure would also increase the capacity of school districts to issue their own bonds measured as a percentage of their assessed value.
That bond capacity would increase to 2% from 1.25% for elementary and high school districts, and to 4% from 2% for K-12 school districts. That aspect speaks to the fact that construction costs have been rising faster than assessed valuations, so in order to build the same school, the school districts need more access to bond authorization, Walrath said. The change will not have a significant effect for the first four to six years, but at 8 to 10 years out, it could make an important difference, he said.
The California State Board of Education approved waivers allowing school districts to exceed their bond debt limit 17 times in 2018, 11 in 2017, 8 in 2016 and 11 in 2015, according to data published on the board’s web site. The board makes the decisions to increase the limits on a case-by-case basis based on recommendations from the California Department of Education, according to a spokeswoman.
The legislation also offers more technical expertise for smaller school districts, which don’t have the professional staff that larger school districts do
California school districts need to spend between $3.1 billion and $4.1 billion annually just to maintain their existing facilities, and modernization and construction is expected to be about $117 billion over the next 10 years, according to “Financing School Facilities in California: a 10-year perspective,” a report produced by University of Connecticut Professor Eric Brunner and University of California, Berkeley professor Jeffrey Vincent.
Co-sponsor Patrick O’Donnell, an Assemblyman from Long Beach who was a teacher for 20 years for Long Beach Unified School District, said he knows first-hand the conditions of the state’s schools.
“I have taught school in a 100-degree classroom,” O’Donnell said. “No one is learning anything in a 100-degree classroom.”
Under the bond measure, school districts shall be eligible to receive modernization grants to demolish and build on an existing school site if the buildings are at least 75 years old and an analysis shows the cost to modernize the buildings are at least 50% of replacement cost. The bill prohibits use of bond money to purchase portable electronic devices with a useful life of less than three years, but it can be used for broadband infrastructure projects.
Marc Joffe, a senior policy analyst with the Reason Foundation, questioned why the state is passing a bond measure to build new schools when the population of school age children in the state is declining and some of the state’s largest school districts have experienced significant declines in enrollment.
In school districts that have some half-full schools, like Oakland Unified School District, he thinks the district should close older, more dilapidated schools and move the students to its newer schools, rather than modernizing.
“I don’t think children should be in a 100-year-old school or portables, but there are a lot of inefficiencies on schools in California,” Joffe said.
The majority of the $9 billion targeting K-12, some $5.2 billion, is for modernization, Newsom said.
“Sometimes we get too captivated with the shiny object of new buildings and don’t do enough for facilities where the HVAC systems are in desperate need of upgrades,” Newsom said.
Newsom said he will continue support the measure in the months leading up to the bond election.
“Voters will approve these bonds, because voters have historically approved school bonds,” Newsom said. “You can’t make eye contact with these kids and say these facilities are appropriate. You can go into parking lots at some of these schools and see kids learning in sheds without heat or air conditioning. That is not who we are. I have confidence that people will do the right thing and support these bonds.”
The Oct. 2 results of a Public Policy Institute of California poll found that the school bond is favored by 66% of adults, but only 54% of likely voters.
Though voters have approved tens of billions in bonds over the past several years for affordable housing, to combat homelessness, for water projects and transportation, Walrath said he is not worried about bond measure fatigue.
“It is a very large bond, but the voters have been supportive of public schools,” he said.
CASH has raised just over $500,000 for the campaign supporting the measure.
“If we get our message out, we will be successful,” Walrath said.
