No Simple Answers in Sight to Classroom Shortage

In recent months, California’s critical shortage of classroom space has moved from obscurity to a high-priority statewide issue, but there is no assurance that Gov. George Deukmejian and the Democratic-controlled Legislature will be able to agree on a solution.

The problem is expensive to solve, and both sides will be jockeying for political advantage in a gubernatorial election year.

The outlines of the situation are becoming well known:

- Statewide enrollment in kindergarten through eighth grade is expected to increase by more than half a million pupils by 1990. The state’s birthrate and migration to California both have increased sharply.

- 26,140 new classrooms are needed to accommodate this student deluge, 16,500 of them in 10 Southern California counties, according to the state Department of Education.

- The cost of building these additional classrooms and maintaining those that already exist is estimated at somewhere between $4 billion and $6 billion.

- Severe overcrowding affects not only large urban districts like Los Angeles, with heavy enrollments of minority youngsters, but also fast-growing, largely Anglo school districts in such places as Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.

- Since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, it has become almost impossible for school districts to gain voter approval for school construction revenue measures, so much of the financial burden has fallen on the state.

During the last legislative session, a package of bills was approved that would have provided at least $200 million in new money for school construction and maintenance in the first year and about $500 million annually thereafter.

Not Convinced

However, Deukmejian vetoed the bills, because they cost too much and because the governor was not convinced that the overcrowding problem was as serious as educators claimed.

“We know it is a serious problem, but we’re not sure of the extent of the problem,” William Cunningham, the governor’s education adviser, said in an interview last week.

To find out, the governor’s office has sent a detailed questionnaire to each of the state’s 1,029 school districts and has followed up by sending Department of Finance personnel to local school districts to check overcrowding claims.

State Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael), chairman of the Senate Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, thinks the survey is a waste of time.

“While the governor is fooling around, trying to find out precisely what the numbers are, the problem is getting worse, and he’s not solving any of it,” Greene said.

However, Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-Redlands) believes the survey will accomplish a useful purpose.

“I don’t think we have ever successfully convinced the governor that the need is great,” Leonard said. “I hope the survey will have an educational affect.”

Cunningham is also meeting with local school officials and representatives of statewide educational organizations.

According to school people who have attended the meetings, the education adviser is suggesting that some new school construction could be avoided or postponed if districts would adopt year-round school plans, move to a longer school day and expand or rehabilitate existing schools, instead of building new ones. Other possibilities include increased class size and double sessions, but Cunningham said he does not favor these.

In the interview, Cunningham emphasized that he is not drawing up a specific plan to deal with overcrowding but is merely preparing a set of options to send to Deukmejian by early December, so the governor “can present something to the Legislature if he wants to.”

Budget Message

Many educators assume that the governor will deal with the issue in his annual State of the State address in January or in his annual budget message.

Greene, for one, does not expect the Deukmejian program to amount to much.

“Either he will do nothing, with a loud fanfare, or he will take the bills we put together last year and say, ‘Behold, this is my program,’ ” he said.

If Deukmejian pursues the latter course, “he’ll have some problems” with the Democratic-controlled Legislature, Greene warned.

“We’re not going to let the governor grab this issue in an election year,” he said.

Greene said he will offer one or more school construction bills, and other Democrats may propose legislation too.

Assemblyman Robert J. Campbell (D-Richmond) said his education subcommittee of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee will hold hearings on the problem late this month or early in December.

Some educators fear that the school overcrowding issue will be caught in a tug-of-war between the governor and the Legislature and that little or nothing will be done.

Meanwhile, the problem is not going away.

Enrollment in Los Angeles schools jumped 14,000 this fall, to 579,000, and is expected to increase by more than 70,000 by 1990.

“They’re coming,” said Byron Kimball, director of school facilities services for the district. “Those are wriggly little bodies out there, and we’ve got to find someplace for them.”

In Moreno Valley, a booming new city just east of Riverside, fall enrollment is 13,600, a jump of almost 20% from last year.

Moreno Valley uses 155 portable classrooms and buses more than one-third of its pupils to try to find classroom seats.

San Bernardino County enrollment increased about 6% this fall, according to Donald Stabler, a facilities consultant in the county superintendent’s office.

Chino, Fontana, Rialto and Rancho Cucamonga--all rapidly growing Inland Empire cities--experienced increases of 5% to 10%, Stabler said, while in some high desert school districts--among them, Apple Valley, Hesperia, Snow Line and Victor--the enrollment soared by 15% to 20%.

Other Districts

Similar reports came from districts in parts of Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties and, in Northern California, from Contra Costa County.

When California school districts were hit by new waves of students in the 1950s and ‘60s, bond issues were routinely passed to build new facilities, but the passage of Proposition 13, limiting increases in local property taxes, changed all that.

The financing burden then fell on the state, which has not been up to the task.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said there is a need for $1 billion a year for the next 10 years to build enough classrooms and to maintain those already built.

However, the state has been providing only about $350 million a year from tidelands oil revenues and from a 1984 statewide general obligation bond issue for construction and rehabilitation of classrooms.

Faced with inadequate state funding, school districts have tried many different ways to finance new construction and to accommodate more students in existing buildings.

In Los Angeles, 94 schools with an enrollment of about 130,000 now operate year-round.

Supt. Harry Handler has proposed that all of the Los Angeles district’s 618 regular schools move to a year-round calendar by the early 1990s, but that would mean air-conditioning 12,000 additional classrooms, at a cost of more than $300 million.

Taxes Approved

Citizens in a few school districts--Chino is one--have approved special school construction taxes.

A few other districts have formed special benefit assessment districts, charging landowners fees that can be used to pay off long-term school construction bonds.

The largest of the special assessment districts was formed recently, when the Irvine Unified School District and the Irvine Co. concluded an agreement that could lead to construction of $150 million worth of new schools by the end of the century.

Irvine, a planned community in Orange County, has used a $50-million local bond issue, passed in the early 1970s, and a $44-million state loan to build schools that currently house 17,750 pupils.

That money ran out four years ago, however, and no new schools have been built since then. The new assessment district should enable Irvine to accommodate an enrollment of 25,000 by the year 2000.

Beginning in December, 1986, the Irvine Co. will pay an assessment of at least $40 an acre on thousands of acres of undeveloped land within the school district boundaries. The money will be used to service the debt on bond issues that will be floated as new facilities are needed.

Developer Fees

Many fast-growing suburban communities have turned to developer fees--charges levied against the builders of new homes and apartments--to pay for needed schools.

The fees, which range from several hundred dollars to almost $6,000 per housing unit in different parts of the state, usually are passed on to home buyers.

“This is forcing a lot of people out of the housing marketplace,” Greene complained.

The use of developer fees also runs against the traditional notion that public schools are a benefit to the entire community and thus should be financed by the entire community. However, financially hard-pressed school administrators say they have no other options for raising money.

No one is certain, but apparently about 20% of the state’s school districts now charge developer fees.

Explaining his veto of a bill that would have eliminated most developer fees, Deukmejian said: “I realize that these fees are unpopular. However, they do provide an available source of revenue for local school districts.”

In September, the state Supreme Court, ruling in a case involving the Grossmont Union High School District in San Diego County, said local governments could levy such fees because the Legislature has failed to solve the “acute and chronic” problem of a lack of money for new schools.

This decision is expected to encourage other districts to assess developer fees.

Housing Plans

Assemblyman Leonard, who opposes such fees, said he hopes to persuade Deukmejian that they discourage some developers and builders from proceeding with new housing plans.

However, Leonard conceded, “I’ve got a lot of work to do downstairs,” referring to the governor’s office, which is located on a floor below most legislative offices in the Capitol.

With the governor and the Legislature jockeying for position in a gubernatorial election year, it is not at all certain that the school construction problem will be solved.

If it is, many educators and politicians believe the solution will probably include a statewide bond issue, perhaps in the $500-million range; continued use of tidelands oil revenues ($150 million a year for the next four years at least); developer fees, possibly with a statewide limit; greater use of local benefit assessment districts, and whatever other creative financing schemes can be developed by local school officials.

In this mix, the state contribution is not expected to be much more than 50% to 60%.

“You need a comprehensive solution or you’re not going to get one,” Honig said. “We need to develop a united front--citizens groups, educators, businessmen--and then keep the pressure on until the problem is solved.”