Props. 78, 79 Would Provide Funds for Schools, Colleges

Faced with a flood of new students, California’s public schools, colleges and universities are pushing for two bond measures that would pay for new classrooms and other campus facilities.

Proposition 78 on the Nov. 8 ballot would provide the state’s higher education systems with $600 million, while Proposition 79 would give kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools $800 million. Officials say the money will pay for only part of a lengthy wish list of new buildings and improvements.

“We’re awash with children,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, who oversees kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools. “We’re growing 140,000 kids a year, and they need to be housed.”

At the state’s public higher education systems, the need is just as urgent, officials said. For example, UC student enrollment, now about 160,000, is expected to grow by at least 30,000 by the year 2005.

“It’s very simple. Either we build the facilities or we don’t take the students,” said William Baker, UC’s vice president for budget and university relations.

Supporters say the general obligation bonds are needed because revenues for education from the state’s tideland oil royalties have dropped sharply in the last decade. In addition, there are few other ways to get around the Gann Amendment, which restricts growth in state spending to changes in population and inflation.

Under plans for this year, Prop. 78 would provide $122.2 million for construction and renovation at the University of California, $105.6 million at the California State University and $103.5 million at the community colleges. How to spend the remaining $268.7 million would be decided in next spring’s state budget.

Among the projects Prop. 78 would help pay for are new engineering and science classrooms at UCLA, a library expansion at UC San Diego, a new building for the School of Business at Cal State Long Beach and a new student service center and cafeteria at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo.

Prop. 79 would allocate $580 million to build new classrooms, $20 million to air-condition year-round schools, $100 million to remove harmful asbestos and $100 million for reconstruction.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has about $139 million in unfunded construction requests. Although enrollment growth has tailed off the last two years, many district schools are crowded and about one-quarter of the district’s nearly 590,000 pupils attend year-round schools, which allow more students to use a campus than a traditional schedule does.

Bond Money Called Vital

Prop. 79 is “urgent to Los Angeles,” school board President Roberta Weintraub said.

According to Duwayne Brooks, assistant superintendent for facilities in the state Department of Education, the state has a $3-billion backlog of requests for state money for school construction. The money from an $800-million construction bond issue approved by voters in June will be exhausted this month, Brooks said.

The steepest growth in public school enrollment is occurring in Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Sacramento, Kern, San Diego and Fresno counties, where a supply of affordable housing, immigration and high birth rates are causing serious classroom shortages, state education officials said.

Both bond issues have bipartisan support and passed the Legislature by large margins. Even opponents concede that the measures are likely to pass, as two similar measures, totaling $1.2 billion, did by margins of at least 60% in 1986. The $800-million bond measure for elementary and secondary schools passed last June with 65% of the vote.

There is no significant opposition to either measure. Activists in the Libertarian Party argue that bond issues represent a failure by the state government to make tough fiscal decisions. The governor and legislators put popular matters, such as schools, on bond issues, while protecting pet programs in the regular budget and hiding the true cost of bond financing, Libertarians say.

According to the state legislative analyst, the $600 million borrowed under Prop. 78 may eventually cost taxpayers $1.1 billion after interest on the bonds is paid. That does not include the unestimated money the treasury will lose in taxes on personal income shifted to the tax-free bonds.

Opposition to Borrowing

State officials argue that even moderate inflation makes bond financing a sensible decision. Furthermore, they stress that California allocates less than 2% of its expenditures to pay off debts, while the national average for states is more than 4%.

Sam Grove, Libertarian candidate for the 5th Congressional District in San Francisco, also argues that Prop. 78 is elitist and will be paid for “by those who never go to college.”

Educators argue that improvement of school facilities benefits all citizens.

“Do you want an educated society or an uneducated society? Vote accordingly,” UC Vice President Baker said.

Backlash Feared

However, some privately fear a backlash from voters who believe that lottery revenue should erase the need for such bond issues. For instance, the lottery provided about $750 million to kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools last year. But state schools chief Honig said that instead of augmenting the overall school allocation, it has supplanted state dollars that would have gone into the schools budget. State law also specifically prohibits schools from using lottery money to construct classrooms.

Also, those education officials concede that this bond issue very likely will be followed by similar ones every two years for the next decade or so.