Schools Turn to Local Voters for Revenue : Education: Rising number of districts put bond, tax measures on ballot. But many officials say state’s financing system needs major overhaul to improve competitiveness.

It is no secret that California’s public schools are struggling financially, as well as academically.

After five years of economic downturn, the state spends $1,100 less per pupil annually than the national average, has the largest average class size in the country and, although the personal computer was invented here, spends less than 48 other states to ensure that students have access to one.

Now, the state’s economy is on the mend. But anti-tax sentiment remains strong in Sacramento, and educators have learned not to look to the Capitol for financial relief.

Many educators and policy-makers say the long-term solution lies in overhauling and simplifying the approximately $30-billion school finance system, which relies largely on local property taxes but is controlled almost entirely by the state. Ultimately, many believe, the strictures of Proposition 13--which limit the ability of the state or school districts to raise money--will have to be modified.

“We really need to look at broad-based taxes, most likely property taxes, to generate the kind of revenues over time that it will take to make our graduates competitive with those in other countries and other states,” said Lawrence O. Picus, who heads the center for education finance at USC. “That’s a bullet the voters and taxpayers of California are going to have to bite.”

In the meantime, schools and community colleges are trying to patch the holes in the statewide school finance system by going directly to voters, asking them to pay higher local taxes and to approve the sale of bonds to generate construction funds.

On Nov. 7, a record 39 school districts throughout the state asked voters for permission to issue a total of $820 million in bonds to modernize, construct and expand school buildings, according to School Services of California, a Sacramento consulting firm. Voters in 18 districts, including South Pasadena and Manhattan Beach, gave the measures the two-thirds margins needed for passage.

Another eight districts asked those who went to the polls to add as much as $150 to their annual tax bills to pay for things such as smaller class sizes. Four such measures were successful.

And the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees is polling voters to gauge support for a local parcel tax that would raise $18 million annually to finance improvements to the nine-campus, 101,000-student district.

“Rather than think systematically about how to refocus the tax system to generate the revenues we need in California, we’ve started to look for little bits and pieces that will patch problems here or there,” Picus said.

The potentially most significant education-related tax measure was announced a week after the November election. The Los Angeles school reform organization known as LEARN said it will try to gather enough signatures to place on the November, 1996, ballot a tax increase on alcohol and cigarettes, which would cost smokers 50 cents a pack and drinkers a dime a shot and raise $2.4 billion annually, primarily for class size reduction and computer purchases.

Mike Roos, who heads the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN), said the money is needed to pay for improvements envisioned by state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.

Eastin wants to reduce the number of students in each kindergarten through third-grade classroom, improve computer technology and make campuses safer.

But reaction to the so-called “booze and butts” tax plan has so far been lukewarm at best.

Although Roos and Eastin have spoken about the proposal, she has yet to endorse it. Neither have any other statewide education groups, including the powerful California Teachers Assn., which is considering launching a separate sales tax initiative for the 1998 election.

The support of such groups is likely to be crucial, given that the tax plan is sure to face fierce opposition from the tobacco and alcohol industries. Observers say it could cost tax proponents $5 million to $10 million to win a majority vote.

Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which is named for the famous tax fighter, said his organization is pushing a separate anti-tax initiative and will not support the “sin tax” proposal.

But polls of likely voters show they favor it, Roos said. He is confident that “there is wide and deep support” for the tax plan and backers will emerge once he asks them to join the drive.

Representatives of several education groups said, however, that the financial challenges facing schools are so great that they can only be addressed by changing the entire system of how schools are financed.

Kevin Gordon, a lobbyist for the California School Boards Assn., said his organization supports a reduction in class size, but taxing alcohol and tobacco to pay for it may in the end be counterproductive--just as was the creation of the state lottery.

“Even though it is a billion dollars worth of revenue, the lottery has created a perception that education has been taken care of and that we don’t need to do anything more for schools,” Gordon said. “It has become a real problem getting people to understand how far below the national average . . . we are.”

The association has formed a committee of school board members and school superintendents, including Los Angeles Unified Supt. Sid Thompson, to decide what a comprehensive education program should look like and how much it would cost--in effect, showing taxpayers what their money would buy.

“Too often we say we need more money and then we try to figure out how to spend it,” Gordon said.

Secretary of Education and Child Development Maureen DiMarco said that strategy makes more sense than simply asking voters for more money.

“Let’s say, ‘Here’s what we need schools to do, here’s where we are currently and here’s the things we need to change,’ ” she said. “Some of those things undoubtedly would cost money and some of them wouldn’t.”

The Roos proposal is not the only education finance measure that has been submitted to the state attorney general’s office for approval--the first step toward gathering signatures to get on the ballot.

Another Los Angeles group, called Children 2000, wants to tax cigarettes to raise $775 million for after-school tutoring programs. And a Northern California group wants to get a voucher plan on the November ballot, to subsidize students attending private schools with tax dollars.

Even as the list of such measures grows, the financial fortunes of schools are beginning to improve. The current state budget gives schools $1.9 billion more than last year, the first increase in five years. And higher than expected tax revenues could generate an additional $650 million on top of that this year, and in each of the next two years.

Still, it would cost at least $8 billion a year to raise California to the national average in per-pupil spending; and schools and colleges say they need to spend another $8 billion constructing, repairing and renovating dilapidated classrooms.

To that end, a coalition of education groups and unions is pushing hard to persuade the Legislature to put a $3-billion bond issue on the ballot in March. But experts say that would not produce enough money to allow local school districts to fix leaky roofs, ease classroom crowding, repair dangerous playgrounds and meet other facility needs. And they predicted that more school districts will try to raise the money locally.

“The problem generally is that the state . . . is unable to meet the huge demand that exists right now,” said Larry Tramutola, an Oakland-based political consultant who has made winning voter approval of local bond measures a specialty.

Such local bond issues are difficult to pass, because they require the approval of two-thirds of those who cast ballots. But voters are becoming more willing to support them, he said.

“People have felt that the only way they can get money for their schools is to pass local measures that guarantee that local money stays local,” he said.

He said he expects local bonds to become more important than statewide bonds for school construction. “It’s got to happen,” he said. “There’s no other way to do it.”