State Says It Can’t Cover Class Reduction Costs

The cost of creating enough schoolrooms to implement the state’s highly popular class-size reduction effort far exceeds the funds allocated, state officials said Wednesday, meaning that school districts in California--including Orange County’s 23 elementary school districts and Los Angeles Unified--will either have to scale back their plans or dip deeply into local budgets.

Data released Wednesday provides the first statewide snapshot of how widely school districts are planning to implement the state’s effort to reduce class sizes in primary grades to no more than 20 students. And it confirms what had been known anecdotally--that districts are moving ahead with their plans as rapidly and widely as possible.

That raises the specter that a program promising educational gains could lead to financial setbacks in some cases.

Earlier this month, districts asked the state for money to pay for portable classrooms, moving walls or other steps necessary to create 14,000 classrooms for students in kindergarten and first through third grades.

But the answer most school districts are getting is not good: The $200 million set aside by the state for the facilities will pay for only 7,725 classrooms, leaving a gap of $151 million.

That figure does not include the funds most districts expected to use from their budgets to pay for classrooms. The state’s facilities grants are for $25,000 per new classroom, while buying and installing a portable building costs $50,000 to $60,000.

In Orange County, district officials said they are relying heavily on the state money to cope with the hefty costs involved in shrinking class sizes.

“We’ll need every dime we can get,” said Carol Mahdavi, the Fullerton School District’s fiscal services director. “Otherwise, we’ll be in the hole in three years.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District will spend $57 million for the nearly 1,000 portable classrooms that it has ordered to reduce class sizes in first and second grades. But it will receive only $16.1 million from the state. The rest will come out of other parts of its budget.

At Garden Grove Unified, administrators ordered 50 portable classrooms--for a total of $3.5 million--to cut class sizes. Under the state funding program, Garden Grove officials were hoping to recoup roughly two-thirds of their portable building costs.

Despite widespread zeal for smaller classes, administrators said they also have been bracing for the worst.

“We knew all along that the state funding would not cover all of the cost,” said Beth Louargand, who manages the LAUSD’s facilities office.

So news of the state shortfall, she said, “wasn’t like . . . a big surprise.”

Added Saddleback Valley Unified Supt. Peter A. Hartman: “This program has been pushing us financially.”

In recent weeks, various Orange County districts calculated future costs involved in maintaining smaller classes. The numbers run into the red.

Newport-Mesa Unified, for example, will have spent $1.1 million to reduce class sizes this year. That number could swell to $1.9 million next year due to student enrollment growth and the rising costs of having added teachers and more classrooms.

“We were able to survive this year,” said Newport-Mesa Unified Supt. Mac Bernd. “But we’re doing it with smoke and mirrors. How we made things happen this year was we took all our [funds] originally set aside for teaching aides and new computers, and pumped it into the reduction program.”

In making Wednesday’s announcement, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin tried to put a positive spin on the shortfall.

“I’ve never seen a bigger program implemented more quickly, that had more enthusiasm associated with it than this one, despite all the problems,” she said. “If we can make this thing work, and our kids can read better and we can reduce our special education costs, people will know it was worth it.”

To close the facilities funding gap, Eastin said, she would push for rules to allow money left over from the $771 million allocated for hiring additional teachers--if there is any--to be spent on creating classrooms. School districts can also apply for $95 million in state bond funds being made available for the class-size reduction. “In the long term,” Eastin said, “we must have a state bond with a major portion committed to class-size reduction if we are to complete this task fairly . . . across California.”

The Legislature failed in September to agree on a bond plan.

School districts have until Nov. 1 to decide how far they want to go this year in reducing class sizes in light of the funding shortfall. Ann Evans, who heads the facilities office for the state Department of Education, said many districts have gone too far to turn back.

“Most of the districts we hear from are implementing their program already with these almost Band-Aid approaches,” Evans said.

Indeed, some districts are squeezing newly shrunk classes into libraries, computer rooms, teachers lounges, auditoriums and other accommodations. In Los Angeles and many other districts, two classes are sharing a single room.

Some school districts have sufficient space for the additional classrooms they need. But about two-thirds sought state financial help.

Most of the large districts in the state--including San Diego, Santa Ana, Sacramento, San Francisco and Long Beach--are participating.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Tina Nguyen.