School Bonds Need Matching Funds

As Orange County school officials celebrate the passage of more than $730 million in construction bonds, their prospects for matching funds from Sacramento to fulfill their building dreams is less certain.

Although the local bond measures will go a long way to help modernize local campuses and build new schools, some of the projects are contingent on California voters approving a statewide bond measure, likely $13billion, in November.

“The work will be done,” said Patricia Godfrey, assistant superintendent of business services for Fullerton School District, which passed a $49.7-million measure. “It is just the extent of work that will get done. [The state money] will enhance what we will be able to do.”

Godfrey said her district will move forward with building an elementary school in the Amerige Heights housing development and making improvements in all of its 19 campuses. The district is also eligible for $17 million in state matching funds for additional modernization projects at six of its campuses should the state measure pass.

For Anaheim City School District, which passed $111 million in local bonds and hopes to receive $120 million to $130 million more from the state, the matching funds will mean the difference between building five new schools or perhaps only three. And in the North Orange County Community College District, officials hope to get $35 million in state funds to augment $239 million in local bonds. The state money will be needed to complete two new libraries and learning centers at its Cypress and Fullerton campuses.

“We’ve passed statewide bonds in the past,” said Donna Hatchette of the college district.

Californians have passed 11 of 12 statewide school construction bond measures since 1982, with the only exception failing by less than 1% in 1994. And unlike local bonds, state measures need only a simple majority to pass.

However, state officials also predict there will be more demand for matching funds since Proposition 39, passed in 2000, lowered required votes for local bond measures from two-thirds majority to 55%.

Statewide, 50 of 57 school districts and 13 of 14 community college districts passed bond measures Tuesday under the new 55% guideline. Of the districts that made it, 39 school districts and 10 college districts would have failed under a two-thirds majority requirement.

In Orange County for example, all the bonds passed thanks to the lower vote threshold: from Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District’s $102 million measure, which got the highest percentage with 65.7%, to North Orange County Community College’s measure, which got the lowest, 57.4%.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda district is now eligible for $115million in state matching funds. The district will move forward with plans for two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school, but if state funds are not forthcoming some of the modernization projects at its existing campuses will not be completed, officials said.

Denis Fitzgerald, director of the Anaheim Home Owners Maintaining their Environment, which opposed some of the local measures, complained about the new system.

“Essentially, the Democrats and the state lowered the rate to 55%,” said Fitzgerald, “and raised the taxes for the people of Anaheim.”

The local bonds will be repaid with increases in property taxes. State bond measures are repaid from the general fund.

The Huntington Beach City School District, with its successful $30-million bond measure, would qualify it for $16.7 million in matching funds. And Anaheim Union High School District, which passed a $132-million measure, would qualify for $125 million in state money.