Recently in Bonds Category

Torrance Unified board members on Monday appointed 13 people to the district's bond oversight committee, in charge of reporting to the school board whether bond money is being spent according to plan.

The two year appointments come as plans to overhaul Torrance school facilities continue to move ahead.

Committee members are Gary Kuwahara, Sumie Imada, Todd Hays, Denise Mandel, James Myers, Michael Wermers, George Harpole, Alex See, Carrie Lang, Steve Polcari, Stephen M. D'anjou, Toni Ann Fierro and David Ouwerkerk.

Seventy-seven out of 86 local school bonds across the state passed on Tuesday -- almost 90 percent of them, according to the California Department of Education.

In total, the bonds that passed will raise $21.8 billion for local school construction and modernization.

(Apparently, it's part of nationwide trend that defied the foundering economy: About 82 percent of bond issues across the country passed, representing $67 billion, according to a story in "The Bond Buyer." The approval rate -- 85 percent -- on the West Coast and in Alaska and Hawaii was higher than elsewhere in the country.)

Many of the school bonds in California passed with a more than the minimum required 55 percent of the vote, but less than the two-thirds threshold that was lowered by voters with the passage of Prop 39 in 2000. That proposition was spearheaded by then-state Sen. Jack O'Connell, who is now the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state.

In a statement, O'Connell said:

"While the vast majority of school bonds, school improvement facility districts, and parcel tax proposals were approved, I would point out that three of the four parcel tax proposals that were not successful won the support of an overwhelming majority of the voters, but failed to meet the two-thirds approval requirement. Eight years ago, California voters wisely agreed to lower the required vote threshold for school bonds from two-thirds to 55 percent. I continue to support lowering the voter approval threshold for parcel taxes to the same level."

All six measures that the Breeze was following, of course, passed -- even Centinela Valley's measure that required a two-thirds vote. Countywide, all 23 schools measures passed.

More detail on Tuesday's school measures (from the CDE release) follows:

Voters were ready for a fifth bond for Los Angeles Unified. Really ready: 68.94 percent of voters approved Measure Q, the $7 billion bond that is intended to repair existing campuses and give funds to charter school facilities.

District officials must be relieved.

For final results, go to the county Registrar-Recorder's site, click "school districts," then "Q."

More on this later ...

There are 23 school bonds on the ballot across Los Angeles County. Statewide, there are 96 local school bonds and 21 local parcel tax proposals.

In the Daily Breeze's coverage area, there are six school bonds before voters today.

• Centinela Valley Union HS District, Measure CV, $98 million
• El Segundo USD's Measure M, $14 million
• Los Angeles Unified's Measure Q, $7 billion
• Manhattan Beach USD's Measure BB, $67.5 million
• Torrance USD's Measures Y and Z, total $355 million
• Los Angeles Community College District's Measure J, $3.5 billion

For those of you that want a primer on school facilities funding in California (come on, people, it's fun!), always useful EdSource has a good rundown.

California voters have also approved $35.4 billion in bonds for statewide funding of school facilities since 1998 (most recently in 2006). That money gets distributed on a monthly basis to districts and individual schools by the State Allocation Board.

David Zahniser has a story in this morning's Los Angeles Times about Los Angeles Unified's plans to develop worker housing on large campuses, including Gardena High School.

District officials say the plan would fill a need for employees who cannot afford to live near their jobs. Opponents of the $7 billion bond that goes before voters on Tuesday are crying foul.

But the development plan is drawing fire from opponents of Measure Q, the district's $7-billion construction and repair bond issue on Tuesday's ballot. Critics contend that the district should not seek to increase property taxes to pay for new facilities if it has enough real estate to start housing its employees.

The California Charter School Association, which has fought to get the district to provide space for charters per state law (and recently touted a charter's legal victory over the district - see PDF), is also not pleased.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who originally backed the plan along with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has pulled her support.

Hahn now says that she was wrong about the housing plan, which was presented to her before the district placed the measure for $7 billion in bonds -- twice the original amount -- on the ballot. Hahn said she is perplexed by the school system's desire to build homes in Harbor Gateway when, as part of its construction program, it is destroying homes in nearby Wilmington, also part of her district.

"There are certainly a lot of hurt feelings because the district has taken people's homes," she said. "So for them to be in the business now of building housing is a cruel twist."

One of the projects would build housing units on the north end of Gardena High's large campus (it's the largest in the district -- 55 acres, I believe). This was on a board agenda back in June and again recently but -- gah! -- I haven't found the time to write about it.

Interesting stuff.

Also -- be sure to check out Daily News reporter George Sanchez's story about $700,000 in donations made to the Yes on Q campaign by construction firms that stand to benefit from district projects.

It's barely been a month since lawmakers finally agreed on a state budget but it looks as though California may be already $10 billion in the red, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Reporter Dan Walters believes schools will be the likely target of massive cuts because it makes up the largest piece of the budget pie. Mmm, it tastes like overcrowded classrooms, fewer programs with a hint of teacher layoffs.

School spending is vulnerable not only because it's such a huge pot - 40-plus percent of the budget - but because as state revenues fall ever-further below the rosy projections, the constitutional floor of school spending also drops. In words, the Legislature and the governor could legally cut schools by billions of bucks, perhaps $4 billion or more.

The Education Coalition, headed by the powerful California Teachers Association, is already beseeching Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to leave them alone, contending that the current budget already shorts schools by several billion dollars, thus renewing the perennial debate over school finance.

Over the past 10 years, spending on K-12 schools in California, both state aid and local property taxes, has risen by an average of 4.9 percent a year while enrollment has risen by under 1 percent per year, according to data from the Legislature's budget office. Most of the remaining 4-plus percent is eaten up by inflation, leaving real per-pupil spending increasing at around 1 percent a year.

The majority of local editorial boards are calling for a No vote on the $7 billion bond measure that Los Angeles Unified has on the ballot next week:

Daily Breeze: Yes

Daily News: No

La Opinión: Yes

Los Angeles Downtown News: No

Los Angeles Times: No

I'll add more links as I find them.

Also, Howard Blume had an overview of the bond in Saturday's Times.

David Zahniser has a must-read story in today's Los Angeles Times about the campaigns launched by Los Angeles Unified and other Southern California agencies on behalf of ballot measures that would benefit them.

Critics say the campaigning, particularly that of the school district, has stepped over the legal line that defines what kind of language public agencies can use in distributing information about ballot issues. In essence, agencies can only distribute "educational" information to voters, not try to sway their votes.

L.A. Unified has taken the concept to its limit, waging a $1-million outreach campaign that includes three mailers sent to 450,000 likely voters. Two of the three stop just short of an endorsement. "This November 4th, remember to vote on Measure Q," reads a piece hitting mailboxes this week.

Experts say the last L.A. Unified mailer crosses a legal line, resembling the campaign brochures typically sent by political committees and paid for by private contributors. "This piece clearly takes a position," said Kathay Feng, executive director of the political reform group California Common Cause. "It is not just a quote-unquote educational piece."

Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick went further, calling the mailer "a complete bending and stretching of the rules."

"This is why people don't trust their government," said Chick, who opposes the bond measure.

Incidentally, at the groundbreaking for the new Carson high school (in Long Beach) this week, the Measure Q campaign had a bright yellow table and was distributing info to parents.

The story also refers to efforts from the cities of Lynwood and Pico Rivera, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Long Beach Unified and a modest $600 spent by Pasadena Unified. A sidebar that goes with the story mentions Torrance Unified's $28,733 spent on mailers for measures Y and Z, and the city of El Monte.

The McClure family in Torrance posed a great question today about school finance in the Daily Breeze.

Q: There are school bond measures on the Nov. 4 ballot for maintenance, new building and improvements that need to be done, but wasn't the lottery supposed to provide money for the schools? How much do we actually get from the lottery?

A: Money from the California lottery provides approximately 1 to 2 percent of all education funding for California schools, the California lottery Web site states.

In fiscal year, 2005-06, the California Department of Education received $1.28 billion from the lottery and $62 billion from the state's general fund, the Web site says. That translates to about $154 and $10,325 per pupil, respectively, based upon more than 8.3 million students in California's public schools, according to the Web site.

In addition to K-12 schools, lottery proceeds also go to, among others, community colleges, the University of California and the California State University systems, and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Division of Juvenile Justice, the Web site says.

"According to the Lottery Act, lottery contributions can be used only for instructional purposes and it bans use for the acquisition of property, the construction of facilities or the funding of research," the Web site states.

The full text of the California State Lottery Act of 1984 is available online at www.leginfo.ca.gov/cq. Click on California Law, click on the Government Code box and type "lottery act" into the search box.

The Los Angeles Times editorializes today against Measure Q, LAUSD's $7 billion bond on the November ballot.

More bothersome is that the dollar figure more than doubled in a matter of days, with little strategy for spending it -- the measure contains vague promises, overlapping projects and more than $2 billion in unspecified future expenses. The very manner in which it ballooned -- after a poll showed that voters, when primed, seemed willing to pass a bigger measure -- gives us little confidence in the district's ability to spend this bond wisely.

(snip)

Without a plan that justifies and guides the expenditures, however, there is too much opportunity for board members and bureaucrats in this highly politicized district to push pet projects ...

The editorial also questions the legality of the district's vague attribution of $1.3 billion in bond money to future repairs. The 2000 state constitutional amendment that lowered the percentage need to pass a school bond from 66.6 to 55 percent required that specific projects be listed, the editorial board writes, and LAUSD's vagueness doesn't cut it.

The bond would be the fifth in 11 years for the district.

A mailer arrived in my mailbox Saturday that uses the faces of smiling students to sell L.A. Unified's $7 billion bond measure -- Measure Q, which is on the November ballot.

Labeled a "Local Schools Report ... Update on Education Needs," the mailer comes targeted to local districts and their corresponding communities.

The mailer doesn't state the total bond amount, but helpfully says the bond will cost $2.42 per month per $100,000 of assessed value.

So, for a $475,000 home (that's the average city of L.A. home sale value for August 2008, down from $630,000 a year prior, according to Dataquick), that's about $138 per year. Based on average sale values of $360,000, Carson homeowners would pay about $105 per year. Gardena, it would be about $115. Lomita: $134. Hawthorne is at $113 and Inglewood, $92 (the small parts of the latter two cities are in the school district.)

(Of course, assessed values for individual homes are different than sales values. I'm just giving these number for a ballpark figure.)

Homeowners -- not renters, of course -- would continue to pay for all those other bonds passed by LAUSD voters since 1997.

Anyway, the mailer bills the bond as a repair, upgrade and improvement measure -- as the district has articulated. Specifically, it mentions: renovations of science classrooms at 29 schools; fire alarms and fireproofing at 9 schools; repairs of electrical, heating and a/c at 14 schools; and "additional repairs to aging and deteriorating schools and classrooms, including plumbing, floors and ceilings and seismic upgrades."