Building MoreSchools: Engine of Prosperity : Governor puts shoulder behind potent infrastructure idea

Because an educated work force is as indispensable to a healthy local economy as good roads and an adequate water supply, school construction is as high an infrastructure priority in California as anything else. Yet in recent years a large influx of students, combined with ever-tighter state and local school budgets, has put California far behind where it should be in providing adequate classrooms.

More than 5 million children attended California public schools in the 1991-92 school year. Enrollment will rise to more than 7 million by the year 2000. Each day for the next five years, the state would need to open 22 new classrooms, the equivalent of an average elementary school, just to keep pace with this projected enrollment growth. And even with that, California classrooms would be just as crowded in five years as they are now--that is to say, the nation’s most crowded.

But where will the funds come from for capital construction? Gov. Pete Wilson has recently breathed new life into a package of old ideas to free up construction money. In one part of his strategic growth plan, released earlier this year, Wilson would create an “infrastructure bank.”

The bank is a worthy idea and the need it addresses is indisputably acute. The bank would be funded through a $1-billion state revenue bond and a $1-billion general obligation bond. Both would require approval by a simple majority of voters. These funds could pay for improvements in schools, ports, flood control, sewage treatment and recreational facilities, but only where localities could provide matching funds. And there lies the rub.

Because strapped counties and cities can no longer finance major improvements through general fund revenue, local bond funds would be the primary source for matching funds. Yet local bond measures require approval by a two-thirds vote, a brutal hurdle. Since 1987, 309 general obligation bonds have appeared on local ballots. Fewer than half (42%) got two-thirds approval; if only a simple majority were needed, 87% would have passed.

Wilson’s infrastructure bank plan includes support for a constitutional amendment, which will be on the ballot in June, to reduce to a simple majority the vote required for passage of general obligation bonds for school facilities. That measure, which needs approval by a simple majority, must pass for the bank to have a chance. These efforts must also be coupled with a streamlined process for school construction as well as greater flexibility for districts in meeting state building codes.

Wilson is reluctant to back broader proposals to eliminate the two-thirds requirement to fund other essential local facilities, such as jails and parks. But such a change--as provided by other proposed constitutional amendments--makes sense.

Even if passed, with constitutional amendments allowing majority approval of local bond measures, the infrastructure bank would be no panacea. The continuing recession presents a Catch-22 for the state and local governments by exacerbating the need for new spending at the precise moment when it becomes more expensive and riskier to borrow money to finance that construction.

Accelerated school construction, like a comprehensive transit network, is key to this region’s future economic health. So too, by the way, is a prompt end to the long-running recession.