Give Students What They Deserve : School repair is an essential, and that’s why bond measure should be on the March ballot

Boarded-up windows, broken bathroom facilities, graffiti-covered buildings, peeling paint, malfunctioning heating and air conditioning, faulty electrical systems and leaky roofs. This isn’t the kind of learning environment California students deserve. Yet this is what they often must endure in these hard economic times.

Ironically, instead of taking a step that might ease the school repair crisis by placing a $3-billion school facilities bond act on the March ballot, some lawmakers have done every thing possible to keep the measure from the voters. They even tried to attach to the school measure provisions on prison funding and the prevailing wage law.

Ideally, funding for the schools--covering retrofitting, new construction and repairs--would match the annual need, in the neighborhood of $2 billion for K-12 and $1 billion for higher education (mainly the community colleges and CSU and UC schools). But despite the willingness of voters to approve school bonds in recent years--with the exception of 1994--the backlog of unfunded projects exceeds $7 billion.

According to the secretary of state’s office, Sacramento could still put a school facilities bond proposition on the March ballot. But the measure must clear the Legislature and be signed by the governor no later than Jan. 8. That means to pass AB 1168, known as the Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 1996, the Legislature must complete work on the legislation within six days.

All lawmakers speak about the importance of a good education; on that, everyone can agree. But the voters must actually be given options so that they can go about addressing the needs of education.

Certainly proponents of the bond issue will need to spell out to the public just what would be paid for with the proceeds and why the various expenditures are justified. Most Americans are living within a tighter budget and they want their government to do the same.

Approval at the polls is not assured. But the Legislature should not deny the voters their right to decide. The proposed Public Education Facilities Bond Act should be placed on the March ballot.