L.A. Schools Begin Drive for State Bond Funds

During the dry years, when there was no state money to build schools, many districts diligently pushed forward their applications anyway.

Los Angeles Unified School District held back, mired in complications, confusion and--critics claim--overconfidence that the money would come its way at some point anyway.

Now that state voters have agreed by passing Proposition 203 to float $3 billion in school construction bonds, Los Angeles Unified’s campus construction machine is trying to cut in line as it gears up to request more than $170 million--about four times what it has finished applying for, critics contend.

Plus, the school district’s current plan to lobby for rule changes and clarifications to its benefit is being greeted with disdain.

“They’re going to do all the work in the next six months that they haven’t done in the past three to five years,” said Laurence Labovitz, a Los Angeles attorney who represents several school districts.

“Then they’ll go in like the proverbial bull in the china shop, all elbows and knees, and want to knock everybody out of the way who has been waiting and playing by the rules,” Labovitz said. “That has built up a tremendous amount of resentment in the state.”

Local district officials view such talk as perennial Los Angeles bashing, saying that the district reignited its bond application operation in October, when it became clear that the bond issue would be on the spring ballot. That leaves Los Angeles’ 30-project wish list still winding its way through the labyrinthine state review process.

They emphasize that progress made toward the district’s goal of gaining at least $170 million from the state bond issue--for instance, earmarking for the first time money for public-private projects such as Belmont Learning Center, which would combine a school with stores and condos--would help other districts that want to attempt similar joint ventures.

“Sure, that would change the rules, but there’s a law that says you can do it and it gives districts an incentive to save the state money,” said Dominic Shambra, the district’s planning and development director. “What’s wrong with that?”

Another Los Angeles proposal, to reduce the funding priority of districts that have only promised to build year-round schools--but do not yet need them--could potentially slide dozens of districts down the list but could move dozens more up.

Shambra and other district administrators acknowledge that Los Angeles sometimes asks for special treatment, but they say that’s because the district is different: larger, more complex and with trickier real estate transactions than most. In this case, as in the past, the district hopes to get the state to agree to reserve money for its future consumption.

Observers at the state level, however, are not so sure that such a tactic will work this time. At the State Allocations Board, the obscure agency charged with doling out the state bond money, the district faces a newly constituted membership--more Republican than Democrat, with no Los Angeles representative.

“It’s a different board . . . and I would say less likely to bend rules for L.A.,” said Amy Dean, principal consultant for the Legislature’s Joint Committee on School Facilities.

Dean lauded the district’s recent performance, but said it is crippled by a former reputation for foot-dragging and making application mistakes.

And some members of the allocations board have lingering questions about the outcome of past decisions to acquiesce to Los Angeles, such as setting aside large portions of money before projects were finalized.

They cite $26 million for air-conditioning, which was never spent and had to be returned to the state. They mention the $50 million handed over for a new high school on Wilshire Boulevard, which got trapped in litigation over the failed Ambassador Hotel deal and was later used to buy land near downtown for the proposed Belmont Learning Center.

In fact, at the same May allocations board meeting at which district officials hope to begin making their case for a larger cut of Proposition 203 bond money, one of the newer board members intends to ask for hearings to probe the former board’s approval of the Ambassador deal.

“The question I have is: ‘Was that money well-spent?’ ” said state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino), who joined the allocations board earlier this year.

Leonard said he would try not to let history influence his future decisions, “but certain districts have reputations of being difficult to deal with and . . . I think Los Angeles overuses their political muscle.”

That muscle may even have lost some bulk, because the bond measure passed by a wide margin statewide instead of leaning heavily on Los Angeles voters to put it over the top, as was the case with many past school bond measures.

“L.A. Unified will not have the political sway to say, ‘We delivered the bonds,’ ” said Joel Kirschenstein, who heads an Agoura Hills public policy consulting firm. “This was the people saying, as a state, ‘Hey, we’re going to give schools a shot in the arm.’ ”

That, Kirschenstein believes, also increases competition because there is public pressure on other districts to get their fair share of the bond proceeds.

The difficulties ahead are not lost on Los Angeles Board of Education members, who have approved $3.2 million to wage a campaign for a local bond issue of up to $3 billion, some of which could be used to match the state bond funds. That effort has begun with a public opinion poll.

In a letter to the state Office of School Construction, Board President Mark Slavkin bemoans the priority given in recent years to districts able to match state construction funds.

“Proposition 203 does not come close to meeting our facility needs, and we do not see future state bonds as a viable option to meeting our local needs,” Slavkin said. “In the meantime, we will urge the Legislature to consider revisions to the current program that will better support our local efforts.”

Board member David Tokofsky criticized such an approach, saying that it “further enhances the perceptions that we don’t play by the rules.”

Tokofsky was the only board member who voted against the local bond campaign, saying it was a waste of money because it was likely to fail.

Instead, Tokofsky, with backing from teachers’ union President Helen Bernstein, is pushing for some of the money set aside for the local bond campaign to instead be used to pay for full architectural and engineering plans for all prospective state bond projects. Such plans are necessary to qualify for the state money.

However, Shambra maintains that the district already has enough plans ready for the amount of money it is likely to receive.

If Los Angeles is able to net the desired $170 million--more than 8% of the $2 billion headed for primary and secondary schools--that would be an improvement over the district’s showing in the past two state bond issues. However, it would still trail the district’s 12% proportion of public school enrollment.

In part, that gap occurs because getting projects ready for state allocations board consideration is only half the battle. Even the $47 million in projects that already have cleared the Division of the State Architect is not guaranteed.

Priority for actual funding is based on two main criteria, both of which are aimed at spreading state money further: willingness to create year-round schools and willingness to match the money. Los Angeles qualifies under the first criteria but not the second.

The district maintains that the matching requirement cripples large urban school systems, which are financially strapped and have enormous construction needs.

Consultants for other districts, who have worked hard to find matching money, criticize Los Angeles for lacking innovation. Local bonds, they say, are only one way to raise such money.

“I’m working with Culver City Unified to negotiate higher developer fees right now, and I helped Santa Monica establish its hotel to use for a revenue base for schools,” said Kirschenstein, the public policy consultant.

“Los Angeles has problems, but it’s one of the wealthiest areas in the state,” he said. “It’s had a lot of time to figure out some creative ways to do this.”