Who’ll Pay for the Schools?

Saddleback Valley School District trustees and land developers planning to build new homes in the district have reached agreement over how much the developers should pay to build new schools. There will be a temporary increase in the building fees for single-family homes from the existing $1,200 to $6,300 and a yearlong study of the housing growth and school-fee problem in the district.

That, for now, has ended the battle in the Saddleback district. But it doesn’t end the war, which will flare up again in many other places having difficulty funding schools to meet population growth. The pressure already has brought a proposal for state help.

In the Saddleback Valley situation, there were strong disagreements centered on the school-funding question. The school board has to build new schools to meet population growth. But unlike pre-Proposition 13 days, it can’t count on state funds or local bond issues for the money. So it resorted to assessing builders of new homes $1,200 per home, which was used for portable classrooms, trailers and other temporary facilities. But permanent facilities clearly are needed and their cost is substantially higher. So school district officials voted to increase developer fees 500% or more. The only alternative, school officials said, would be to halt construction of new homes.

Developers, faced with fees of $6,000 to $7,000 per residential unit, argued that the plan puts the burden of school construction unfairly on them and on buyers of new homes when the state should be paying. There is a further negative, they said. The higher fees raise the cost of the new housing, which, in turn, can price many families out of the home-buying market.

The one thing the builders and school board did agree on is that Sacramento ought to be doing more to remedy the need for funds for school construction. There is a growing consensus on that point that legislators can no longer ignore.

In Orange County, in addition to Saddleback Valley, the Tustin and Santa Ana school districts are facing shortfalls in funds needed for new schools. Builder fees and extraordinary actions--such as the $8 million the City of Santa Ana gave its school district when trustees began talking about a construction freeze or builder fees--are dismissed by critics as Band-Aids instead of effective cures.

Orange County needs an estimated $43 million for new schools. Throughout California, there are pending applications--but no money--for $884 million in new school construction.

Year-round schooling that makes greater use of existing buildings can help ease the problem. But it won’t solve it. Developer fees also have their limitations, beyond which they can do more harm than good.

Bill Honig, the state superintendent of schools, in a visit to Orange County several weeks ago, said that he favored a limit on the amount of fees that districts can charge developers. He would have additional state funds for school construction to supplement the fees paid by developers. That merits careful study.

Other state officials are also interested in the problem. State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) has proposed an $800-million bond issue for the November ballot. And Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Sacramento) is proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow a small state tax on construction to be used to build new schools.

Considering the need for more housing and schools in Orange County and other areas of the state, it’s time the Legislature gave new school financing the priority attention that it so obviously deserves.