Education Officials Welcome Measures on Bonds and Taxes

Amid gloomy reports of diminished funding for education, school officials in the Santa Clarita, Antelope and Conejo valleys received one bit of good news Wednesday as lawmakers approved bills that would make it easier to pass local school bond and tax measures.

The Legislature approved two separate bills designed to reduce the current two-thirds majority vote requirement to a simple majority for bond measures and general taxes, such as land parcel levies.

The proposed change for bond measure approval will be placed before voters in a June, 1994, initiative because it would amend a century-old provision in the state Constitution. The general-tax bill has been sent to Gov. Pete Wilson, who is expected to sign it.

“This provides majority rule, as opposed to the minority rule that has existed,” said Albert D. Marley, superintendent of the Las Virgenes Unified School District. “The one-third has been able to call the shots. We believe very strongly that majority rule should be in effect.”

Like many other districts, Las Virgenes Unified has been hampered in its effort to build new schools by the two-thirds approval requirement. A proposed parcel tax last year, Proposition K, fell just 270 votes short of the two-thirds benchmark.

Since 1983, only 46% of school bond measures statewide have been approved by the necessary majority, according to the state Department of Education. But more than 90% of those measures received a simple majority vote.

One of those was a $20-million bond issue for the Newhall School District that garnered more than a simple majority of votes in two elections last year but went down in defeat because of the two-thirds rule.

Supt. J. Michael McGrath said he welcomed the Legislature’s action, especially in light of his district’s burgeoning enrollment and the prospect of crowded classrooms.

“We certainly are pleased,” he said. “Our board has had a longstanding position for supporting a simple majority for school bond issues.”