Building Consensus: Districts gear up to pass the 2004 school facilities bond 

The dust has cleared, the votes have been counted and — at long last — the California gubernatorial recall election is over. But when it comes to priorities crucial to the education community, the next big political campaign is just beginning. It’s time to get serious about building support for Proposition 55, the $12 billion school bond that will appear as Proposition 55 on the March 2004 ballot.

To succeed, the campaign for the 2004 facilities bond – like the campaign that convinced voters to pass the $13 billion state bond in 2002 – will require plenty of commitment from local school board members and other school advocates who believe California schoolchildren deserve decent school facilities.

Perhaps the first challenge will be to capture the attention of an electorate that’s grown accustomed to getting its political and public policy news from TV talk shows.

“We’ve had more than our share of political turmoil and economic crises this year,” says CSBA Vice President Kerry Clegg, a school board member in the Sulphur Springs Union Elementary School District. “Luckily, we’re finding that people can see beyond the politics and focus on the needs of our children. Once again, school board members will have to activate community networks and work with local businesses, chambers of commerce and higher education to let our local communities know what Proposition 55 will mean for local children and neighborhood schools.”

Raising money to repair aging buildings and build new classrooms isn’t an especially exciting issue. But it’s plenty important to the children who go to outdoor assemblies in the winter because there’s no school auditorium or who swelter in classrooms without air conditioning during summer months.

“Here we have an issue that literally is going to touch schoolchildren all over the state,” says veteran political consultant Kam Kawata, campaign manager for Californians for Accountability and Better Schools. “Anyone who has been around a public school in the last 10 years knows this. The recall election was an aberration. This issue won’t get talked about on the network news or talk radio. That’s why we’re rolling up our sleeves, starting early and traveling the state. We’re building upon an excellent coalition of businesses, chambers of commerce, teachers, parents and school board members that already exists. We intend to mobilize tens of thousands of folks to help get the word out.”

Proposition 55 is the second installment of a $25 billion K-university bond package authorized by state lawmakers in April 2002. The first of the two bond measures, Proposition 47, included $11.4 billion for K-12 facilities and $1.65 billion for higher education and lawmakers placed it on the November 2002 ballot.

Thanks to a vigorous public information campaign waged by the same coalition of school supporters that is regrouping for the March 2004 bond, Proposition 47 won nearly 60 percent of the vote. Voters obviously got the message that even at $13 billion, the huge 2002 bond measure was hardly extravagant. In fact, it only provided half the amount of money experts estimated it would take to shore up and repair aging schools and build new campuses in fast-growing communities. Now it’s up to voters to finish the job by approving the sale of the other $12 billion by passing Proposition 55 in March.

By the end of the decade, state demographics experts predict that an additional 1 million students will enter California public schools, community colleges and state colleges and universities.

The state Office of Public School Construction estimates that more than 1 million California students attend schools that are either overcrowded or in need of repair. The state Department of Education says nearly 1,000 schools in 47 districts are “critically overcrowded,” meaning they have population densities in excess of 200 percent – and in some cases 300 percent – of state guidelines.

The problem will only get worse with time.

Despite the obvious need, Proposition 55 is not a slam-dunk. Last year California faced a $38 billion deficit, due in large part to the flagging state economy that continues to worry many voters. “I anticipate that this will be a challenging campaign,” says David Walrath, legislative advocate for the Coalition for Affordable School Housing. “We have a powerful coalition and we’re dedicating significant resources to the campaign. We need the support and passion of school boards to pass local resolutions and get the word out about why the bond is important to the community.”

Bond financing is complicated, making it imperative that school bond advocates clearly explain what bonds will and will not do.

“A bond is not a tax or a tax increase, although opponents say that it is,” says Duwayne Brooks, head of the Facilities Division of the California Department of Education. “It’s more like a home mortgage. It’s an investment. When the state sells bonds, it is obligated to pay the buyers principal and interest over a specified period of time, just the way homeowners pay their mortgages. If the state had to wait to build schools until it had the cash to pay for the whole project, we wouldn’t build a single school.”

Once voters approve a bond issue, the state can advance the money to get school projects planned and built before selling the bonds. “This gives the state the latitude to wait to issue bonds until market conditions are best,” says Brooks. “It’s a win-win. Investors get a tax credit, which allows the state to offer a modest interest rate on the bonds and still guarantee that buyers get a decent return on their investment. California children get their schools. There’s no tax increase.”

The data also show that voters continue to appreciate the many provisions of Proposition 47 and the 2004 bond that hold the state and local districts accountable, demanding strict plan reviews and detailed reports on how money is spent.

The campaign scored a major coup when it won the endorsement of the Cal-Tax organization, a citizens’ watchdog group committed to protecting taxpayers’ interests. Cal-Tax also endorsed Proposition 47. The 2004 bond has strong business support, as did Proposition 47, winning endorsements from the California Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. In fact, Bill Hauck, Business Roundtable president, chairs the 2004 campaign.

Walrath says both of the last two state bond measures, Propositions 47 and 55, have strong accountability provisions to ensure that state funds will go directly to school construction and repair. 

Walrath says it’s imperative that the campaign is “grassroots driven.”

Mina Fasulo and Rick Pratt, Assistant Executive Directors for Communications and Governmental Relations, respectively, at the California School Boards Association, will be responsible for making sure local districts have the tools they need to rally local support for Proposition 55. 

“We’re going to be using the leadership structure that we have in place at CSBA: our Board of Directors, officers and Delegate Assembly to serve as our ambassadors in this campaign for school bonds,” Fasulo says. “Our goal is to be out in the communities to get our message out there.”

Fasulo says CSBA has put together comprehensive Media and Communications School Bond 2004 Tool Kits for every California district.

Brandon Castillo, a consultant with the Proposition 55 campaign, says CSBA will play a key role in the grassroots effort.

“We will rely on school boards who know the local community and can say exactly how the bond will benefit local schools,” he says. “Our job is to produce a professional campaign strategy. But this is a backyard issue. Local voters need to hear about the need for this bond from local people who understand that an investment in our schools is truly an investment in our economic future.”

Students are also stepping forward to help. Peter Chau, a senior at Pinole Valley High School, is the student representative on the West Contra Costa Unified School District school board. Chau says he wants to travel with the campaign to press events and visits to newspaper editorial boards to talk about what he calls the “deteriorating atmosphere in public schools.”

“I am pretty proud to say that I have received an education that’s every bit as good as what students get at elite private schools,” says Chau. “But I visit a lot of campuses because I am on the debate team, and I don’t feel so confident about students starting high school now. The atmosphere in public high schools is deteriorating because of budget cuts, and facilities have a lot to do with the worsening atmosphere. In my journalism classroom, the roof leaks and water drips out of the air conditioner. So it’s wet even when it isn’t raining. My history teacher spent her own money to paint her classroom and repair the windows.”

CSBA Vice President Clegg and other members of CSBA’s Facilities Committee helped lay the groundwork for the last successful bond measure. The committee, which Clegg chaired, brought diverse districts to the table and helped negotiate a system for allocating bond funds that was fair to everyone.

Earlier state bond measures, although crucial to the districts lucky enough to be first in line for the funds, invariably fell far short of meeting the growing need for school facility financing. While everyone agreed that there was not enough money to fund all the worthwhile projects in the state, there were passionate differences of opinion about which districts needed state funds the most. The resulting competition was bad news for anyone, pitting district against district, at a time when the education community needed to rally support for a multi-billion bond measure.

CSBA’s Facilities Committee also worked with experts to design a process for assessing which districts had the most urgent needs for bond funds. The formula had to balance the needs of small districts and large districts and consider unique circumstances in urban, rural and suburban areas.

These were not easy tasks in a state with an aging school infrastructure (74 percent of California classrooms are more than 25 years old), escalating enrollment and a huge backlog of deferred maintenance. But local districts – and taxpayers – had to know the system was fair, or they wouldn’t support it.

“I think our work was very effective,” says facilities consultant Kristin Schreder, a school board member in the Redding Elementary School District who sat on the CSBA committee. “The state ultimately adopted many of our recommendations.”

The education community pulled together behind Proposition 47 and once the measure passed, Gov. Gray Davis ordered the Office of School Construction and the State Allocation Board to get funds to districts as quickly as possible.

“The State Allocation Board distributed more than $11 billion in a year,” Walrath says. “That’s phenomenal.”

There were $5 billion worth of state-approved school construction and modernization projects waiting in the pipeline for state funds. The state, working under intense pressure to show voters their investment was having an impact, has long since eliminated that backlog.

Brooks, who sits on the State Allocation Board, says all the modernization funds provided by the 2002 bond are gone. The board expects that there will be about $800 million left in new construction funds when voters go to the polls in March.

“We were hoping to have all the money allocated by now,” Brooks says, “but local budget cuts impacted some districts pretty hard. They had to eliminate classified staff who normally would be overseeing some of these projects. There was also the problem of getting so much funding approved all at once: contractors and consultants have been swamped.”

Walrath says districts with modernization projects are already beginning to line up for a chance at getting their share of the next bond. “By March,” he says, “there will be many more.”

Carol Brydolf is a staff writer for California Schools.