Conejo Board Debates How to Spend Possible $40-Million Bond Issue : Schools: It would place a top priority on the modernization of existing buildings, the Thousand Oaks trustees and staff members agree.

Hoping to air-condition hot classrooms, restore peeling paint and add wiring that would allow students to surf the Internet, the Thousand Oaks school board on Thursday began debating how to spend a possible $40-million bond issue.

The trustees agreed with Conejo Valley Unified School District staff that their first priority was to modernize existing school buildings.

“It’s my professional recommendation that we fix up what we’ve got before we add new stuff,” said Sean G. Corrigan, director of planning and facilities. “We have 30-year-old buildings. Some of them haven’t been painted since they were built.”

The school board, the Thousand Oaks City Council and the Conejo Recreation and Park District came up with the idea of a joint bond issue at an unprecedented joint meeting last month. The elected officials agreed that voters in 1996 would be more likely to approve the bonds--financed perhaps by a sales tax increase of half a cent on every dollar--if the three agencies cooperated.

Corrigan gave the board a list of construction and renovation projects totaling $31 million.

The first priority, he said, is $21.8 million worth of improvements to 16 school campuses, all more than 30 years old.

The improvements would include adding air-conditioning to sites without it; converting two-prong electrical outlets to safer, grounded, three-prong outlets; and repainting some of the schools’ interiors and exteriors, Corrigan said. The modernization effort might also include replacing floors and ceilings, and adding phone lines and computers to allow students to use technology in learning, he said.

The second priority, at a cost of $3.1 million, would be adding a swimming pool to Westlake High School.

Third on the list would be adding $1.5-million gyms at the district’s four intermediate schools.

The priorities met with general approval from the board, but Trustee Richard Newman said he was not sure that age should be the only factor in deciding which schools get the modernization money. The district might want to spend some of the money on newer schools that are not air-conditioned, Newman said.

Board members also worried that the size of the proposed bond issue wouldn’t cover the needed expenditures. Half of the $40 million is expected to pay for debt service, and the rest of the money would probably be divided among the three agencies.

“To talk about all these things isn’t realistic anyway,” Trustee Mildred Lynch said.

Still, the needs are real, school district officials said.

“The wiring to me . . . is important,” Supt. Jerry C. Gross said. “I don’t think we can wait for that.”

It was enough to make the board look for other sources of funding, even in improbable places.

“Isn’t Conejo in the $100-million sweepstakes that comes in the mail?” Trustee Elaine McKearn asked.

Representatives of the three agencies plan to meet again in August to continue exploring the bond issue.