Financing of New Schools Weighed : Construction Needs Outpace Money Supply, Legislators Say

California’s growing school enrollment requires new buildings faster than the state can finance them, lawmakers said Tuesday at a joint hearing in Orange County.

The special hearing of the Assembly Education Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means education subcommittee was held in Costa Mesa “because so many of the school growth problems are in this part of the state,” said Assemblyman Robert J. Campbell (D-Richmond).

The legislators are trying to devise ways to pay for the scores of new buildings needed to house increasing enrollments in many parts of the state. But several officials testified that Southern California, because of legal and illegal immigration, is especially affected.

Daylong Hearing

Officials at the daylong hearing at the Orange County Department of Education said:

- The Santa Ana Unified School District will need up to five new elementary schools by 1990.

- The Los Angeles Unified School District will need 41 new schools by that year.

- Statewide, the construction costs for new schools over the next five years will exceed the available funds by at least $900 million.

Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who took part in the hearing, said that her bill for a proposed $800-million bond issue for school construction would provide part of the solution.

Campbell said another partial solution might be in giving school districts more tidelands oil money for construction.

But state legislative analyst William Hamm suggested that a constitutional amendment also is needed. An amendment that will appear on the statewide ballot next June would allow local governments, with the approval of two-thirds of the voters, to sell bonds to build schools and temporarily increase the property tax to repay the money, Hamm said.

‘A Legitimate Concern’

Hamm noted that some critics have charged that the amendment, if passed, might violate the equal-school-funding principles mandated by the state Supreme Court in the Serrano-Priest decision of 1971. “This is a legitimate concern,” Hamm said.

He therefore proposed that the Legislature pass accompanying legislation that would give poor school districts a lower matching rate to obtain state construction money than rich districts.

Hamm also urged passage of legislation to give school districts financial incentives for expanded use of existing buildings, such as year-round classes.

Joan Wilkinson, president of the Santa Ana Unified school board, told the hearing that her overcrowded school district already has a year-round schedule at some schools and proposes to expand it to six more.

“We’ve already exhausted all the alternatives the committee’s been suggesting,” Wilkinson said. She said Santa Ana Unified thus has no choice but to build up to five new elementary schools in addition to a new high school already on the drawing boards.

‘Stunned’ by Donation

Wilkinson said the unexpected $8-million donation for school construction pledged by the Santa Ana City Council on Monday night will help finance one of the five needed elementary schools. “That money just stunned us,” she said. “Unfortunately, the cost of land in the downtown Santa Ana area (where a school is needed) is about $1 million an acre, and an eight-acre site would take all that money.”

Wilkinson said the school board hopes to get at least a five-acre site for an elementary school.

Even with the city’s $8 million, she said, state aid for other construction will be badly needed in the next five years.

Los Angeles Unified Supt. Harry Handler testified that his school district will need 27 new elementary schools, 10 new junior highs, and four new high schools by 1990-91.