Voters approved more funding to fix LA, Orange County schools. Now what?

Voters gave Southern California schools the go-ahead to spend billions of dollars to repair and upgrade campuses.

With the vast majority of ballots tallied, most local school funding measures met or exceeded the 55% of votes required to pass.

• L.A. County voters approved 25 school district bond measures worth $14.8 billion. (Los Angeles Unified’s Measure US accounts for $9 billion alone.)  
• Orange County voters approved nine school district bond measures worth $2 billion. 

Between the two counties, just one bond, Saugus Union School District’s Measure N, is on track to fail.

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LAist reached out to the district for the comment, but officials there have not responded.

Local bond measure results

Sara Hinkley studies school facilities policy at UC Berkeley and said that since 2001 about 78% of local bond measures statewide have passed. Success rates are typically higher in presidential election years, though.

Voters also approved Proposition 2, which replenishes a pool of matching dollars to help districts pay for facilities projects.

How do local bonds work? 

A bond is basically a loan that a school district takes out, and that property owners in that school district pay back through an increase in property taxes.

In California, there’s no dedicated stream of funding to support school facility repairs, renovations or construction. The majority of the money schools receive from the state every year supports students, staff salaries and other day-to-day expenses.

What happens now? 

Local districts have already identified projects that could benefit from improvements, but must now determine which projects will be funded and in what order.

There are often years of community meetings, design, and permitting that happen between the passage of a bond and the start of construction, though minor renovation projects could be completed sooner.

For example, voters in the Culver City Unified School District approved a $358 million bond in March. The superintendent for that district, Brian Lucas, said smaller projects, like bathroom renovations and ceiling tile replacements, were completed over the summer, but larger projects must go through a lengthier approval process with state agencies.

“We have a lot of work ahead because our facilities are in dire need of some infrastructure and repair, and our classrooms really need to be modernized,” Lucas said. “I hate to say it, but we're gonna need more [funding].”

Will it be enough money to fix everything?

School districts promised voters repairs to roofs, HVAC systems, plumbing and aging portable classrooms, but it’s likely there won’t be enough money for every fix.

“We've underfunded facilities for so long that even this much needed influx of state and local funding isn't enough to get schools up to where we think they should be in terms of quality,” said Hinkley, who is the California program manager at the Center for Cities + Schools.

It’s possible that Culver City, and others with recently approved bonds, will apply for funding from the state’s new Proposition 2 funding —$8.5 billion for K-12 public schools and $1.5 billion at community colleges.

To get money from the state for repair and construction projects, local school districts have to provide:

• 45-50% of the funding for new construction
• 35-40% of the funding for renovations

However, the money may not last long because there’s already a backlog of projects waiting for funding. The Office of Public School Construction told LAist that as of August, schools have submitted an additional $3.9 billion of school modernization and construction projects.

Who is in charge of all this money?

State law lays out several accountability measures for local school district bonds, including:

• Independent, annual performance audits of bond-funded projects and spending 
• The creation of an independent bond oversight committee that includes:
  
  • At least seven members
  • Representatives of the business community, taxpayers, and parents. School district employees, vendors, contractors, and consultants cannot be appointed. 

Search for your district’s bond oversight committee website to see upcoming agendas, summaries of past meetings, audits, and other information about how the district has spent bond funding.

How does this impact property taxes? 

Local school district bonds are paid back with interest through property taxes on parcels within district boundaries.

To find the average estimated cost of your district’s bond, look for the language: “levying X dollars per $100,000 of assessed valuation.” (Sometimes, this will be listed as “levying X cents per $100 of assessed valuation.” The end result is basically the same.)

In some cases, residents do not see a property tax increase because the district structured the new bond so that as a prior voter-approved funding measure tapers off, the new tax kicks in and the cost to property owners is unchanged.

Proposition 2 does not directly impact local property taxes.

The bond would be paid back with interest from the general fund. The annual average payments — about $500 million annually for 35 years — account for less than one-half of 1% of the general fund budget, according to the Legislative Analyst’s office.