School Board to Poll Voters on Tax Increase

Following the old adage about having to spend money in order to earn it, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday authorized a $93,000 survey to probe voters’ views on taxing themselves to build new schools and rescue old ones from disrepair.

The board also decided to reassign four staff members to a special office charged with finding more ways to get construction and renovation dollars.

Both actions came the same day that the board put 46 more schools into its controversial multitrack, year-round system of relieving overcrowding. The board also authorized adding 272 portable classrooms at 61 schools, at an estimated cost of $36 million. In some cases it also approved increasing class sizes, all part of its mandate to 105 schools to enlarge their capacities by at least 23%.

Last year, the board ordered 109 elementary schools to increase capacity, and it is expected that all of the more than 600 campuses in the district eventually will have to find ways to make more room. For many, the only alternative is to divide their students into different groups, or tracks, so the students are on vacation at different times, thus freeing classroom space.

Earlier Monday, officials of the financially pressed district, which anticipates losing about $300 million to state budget cuts in the 1991-92 fiscal year, told the board it can afford to put up only $9.4 million per year toward deferred maintenance projects during the next five years.

The state provides money for such projects as reroofing buildings, replacing plumbing and renovating wiring, but requires local school districts to match whatever it gives. District officials estimate it would take $600 million to cover all the needed renovation projects.

“Politically, this is not an easy vote,” board member Mark Slavkin said in acknowledging that the board would take some heat for approving his motion to commission the voter survey.

“But I really believe strongly this is the right and sensible thing to do,” Slavkin said before the board voted 4 to 1 to approve the survey. It will be conducted by Fairbank, Bregman & Maullin, a firm with extensive political polling experience.

Board member Leticia Quezada voted no, in part because she believed the board’s efforts might duplicate a survey planned by a new business and community group, LEARN.

But Supt. Bill Anton said the lengthy LEARN poll is aimed at measuring other views and could not accommodate the district’s need to ascertain public support for a bond measure.

The board later may decide to spend another $125,000 if it decides to proceed with a bond campaign. Because state law requires two-thirds approval from voters for local spending measures, districts have had a tough time raising more dollars locally and have had to rely on scarce state funds for most construction and repair projects.

With parents upset about the lack of air conditioning in many schools and about crowded, crumbling buildings, “the bond effort is the only way out,” board member Warren Furutani said.