Alliance Seeks New Funds for Schools

State legislators have undertaken an ambitious effort to join local school districts and developers in financing $42 billion worth of school repairs and construction over the next 10 years.

The push, which could become one of the top legislative priorities in the final weeks of the session, marks one of the state’s most concerted efforts to tackle school financing on a long-term basis.

So far it has produced some odd alliances and pitted traditional allies against each other in a pitched battle that could spill onto next year’s ballot.

In an unusual political marriage, the powerful California Teachers Assn. and the Building Industry Assn. have brokered a plan that could shift some costs of new school construction from developers to taxpayers.

It calls for a rigid cap on the ballooning fees developers now pay to build schools. California voters also would be asked to approve $20 billion in school construction bonds in a series of elections over the next 10 years. Local districts would be required to match the state funding.

Voters also would be asked to lower the authorization level for local financing of construction bonds from two-thirds to a simple majority of the votes.

But developers could be on the hook for a big share of school construction costs. If a district failed to pass a local bond measure and took every possible step--including year-round schooling--to provide seats for students generated by new growth, a developer would be required to pick up half the cost of the school. The state would pay for the other half.

“Educators have been locked in this death grip relationship with builders for quite a number of years,” said Rick Simpson, a teachers association lobbyist. “Both sides have struck a balance. This would ensure that when those 1 million extra kids show up in California classrooms over the coming decade, we’ll have a place for them to sit.”

The plan has been attacked by others in the educational community who suggest that it gives too much to developers without any assurance that a local district could come up with its share.

“In its most simple form, this package is an attempt to have taxpayers bail out the development community on a pretty grand scale,” said Kevin Gordon, chief lobbyist for the California School Boards Assn.

Critics such as Gordon say any cap on fees that developers pay should be contingent upon school districts getting permission to issue bonds with a simply majority vote. Currently, the plan automatically would cap the fees.

Gordon also objected to the plan because it would prevent cities and counties from denying a development permit on the grounds that school plans are inadequate.

“You could deny a development because it didn’t have good enough sewers or roads, but you couldn’t if the schools were inadequate,” Gordon complained. “There’s just something fundamentally wrong that schools, out of all the infrastructure, would be exempted from the equation.”

But the current arrangement gives school districts “all the power,” said Tim Coyle, a building industry lobbyist. If a builder balks at the school fees demanded by a district, he said, the project can simply be rejected.

Building trade unions have started criticizing the plan because it calls for a 20% cost reduction in school construction. Unions are concerned that would virtually ensure the use of prefabricated structures manufactured by nonunion workers.

Coyle, however, said such worries are unfounded because cost savings will simply mean more schools can be built, resulting in more jobs for construction workers.

All sides agree that local districts should be able to fund school bonds with a simple majority vote.

Gov. Pete Wilson also backs the notion, but many Republican legislators have balked. They argue that state voters already rejected the idea back in 1993, when the electorate soundly defeated Proposition 170.

“I think it will be very difficult to get the Legislature to ratchet it down,” said Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael), chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee.

Instead, Mazzoni thinks a single $5-billion statewide bond issue next year would be an appropriate compromise. She would like to see $1 billion go to higher education. The rest would go to primary and secondary schools for technological improvements, modernization and expansion, including the extra space needed because of recent efforts to reduce class sizes in lower grades.