Escondido and School Districts Hammer Out Agreement on Funds

The city and school districts of Escondido, overcoming the last hurdles in a bitter battle over redevelopment funds, will vote on a proposed agreement within two weeks, officials said Thursday.

“We have met to clarify the last two major issues, and the agreement will be sent to our respective boards in final draft within two weeks,” said Jim Lund of the Escondido Union school board after a meeting attended by two members from each of the two school boards and the city councils.

The agreement, whose precise wording has yet to be hammered out by attorneys, ends a four-year battle, including a lawsuit filed by the schools last May against the city.

In dispute has been when the elementary and high school districts will begin receiving their share of the tax-sharing redevelopment agency funds, projected to be $1.4 billion over the 45-year life of the agency.

School officials had claimed that they were due over $1.6 million in revenues from the agency, but city officials disagreed.

Mayor Jerry Harmon said the settlement includes $3 million to be divided among Escondido Union, Escondido Union High and the county schools in lieu of office space that they were entitled to in a yet-to-be-built regional office building.

The Community Development Commission, the arm of the city that administers the redevelopment program, also will delay repayment of a $15-million loan from the city, instead funneling those funds to the schools as early as 1991, Harmon said.

“The schools would be receiving money long before the year 2000, which initially would have been the time frame if the city had demanded that it be paid back first,” Harmon said.

The last sticking point dealt with property-development taxes, an issue that the board and council members agreed in principle to separate from the discussion of redevelopment funds, Harmon said.

“We’re working in harmony in meeting the needs of the community as opposed to battling each other,” said John Laing, a member of the Escondido Union board.

Laing declined to specify when the agreement would go to a vote of his board, saying that detailed wording of the agreement has yet to be worked out.

“We’re not committed to a time frame as much as we are to getting an accurate document,” Laing said.

It was misunderstanding of the precise wording of the redevelopment plan that first led to the conflict between the schools and the city.

The redevelopment agency, which was created in 1985, froze assessed property values and property taxes within a district, and as the city developed, property tax revenues that exceeded the frozen level went to the city-run redevelopment agency.

The school districts are entitled to nearly two-thirds of the revenues that go to the redevelopment agency, after certain conditions have been met.

The school districts had claimed that those conditions--which include funding for the building of the new City Hall and the city’s proposed cultural arts center--had been met, but city officials disagreed.