Hopping on the School Bond Wagon

The passage of the second school bond within a year in Orange County has several other districts hoping that recent history repeats itself--again and again.

At least four other Orange County school districts plan to ask voters for millions of dollars in November.

Even while residents within the Brea Olinda Unified School District were approving the bond Tuesday, school officials around the county were considering their own measures.

The Huntington Beach school board was the first to make it official, voting 4 to 1 Tuesday night to put a $123-million measure on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Santa Ana appears poised to ask residents for $164 million and Capistrano will likely seek $65 million. Anaheim city school officials also intend to seek a bond soon, but they haven’t yet settled on a dollar figure.

In Irvine, officials are mulling their financing options and will decide June 21 whether to seek voter approval of a parcel tax. The district is $2.5 million over budget this year, and Irvine must quickly boost its funding or cut school programs.

Brea’s bond was the second to pass in the county in recent months. Buena Park School District voters passed a bond measure in November.

Orange County educators credit the school bond bonanza to heady economic times, recovery from county bankruptcy and most important, to the availability of state matching funds.

“Under this new program, a district is put in the position where it has to come up with its own [local] resources, so I think even in Orange County, we’ll be seeing districts come forward with bond issues,” said Michael Vail, Santa Ana’s facilities director.

Also, districts are employing new tactics to woo voters into taxing themselves: They are reaching out to businesses and PTAs, detailing expenditures and creating citizen oversight panels that will watch how every penny is spent.

“Smart districts, realizing that they are legally proscribed from advocating [for a yes vote] once the measure is on the ballot, have to depend on the community to carry the message about the urgency of need,” said bond consultant Richard Maullin, whose public opinion research firm is working with Capistrano and Huntington Beach.

“If you don’t have people involved, your chances of a successful campaign are less,” he added. “Community involvement isn’t a nicety; it’s a necessity.”

Brea Olinda conducted its own voter registration drive and signed up about 250 parents, sent mailers almost every week, outlining why schools needed repairs and called the households of all 16,000 voters in Brea, said board member Barbara Paxton.

“From my standpoint we put an issue before the community, we made a strong case for the need and people realized that part of being a homeowner and member of the community is that you support things that are important to your community,” she said.

Now others hope to follow in their footsteps.

Capistrano’s superintendent hopes to leverage up to $101 million from the state if a local bond passes. Huntington Beach expects $37 million.

“Orange County historically has been a donor county to the state treasury--we give far more than we get back in services,” said Capistrano Supt. James A. Fleming.

“This is one way we can turn that around big time,” he continued. “The offer is too good to turn down. It would be unconscionable not to offer this to the voters and let them decide.”

Under the new state building program, even school districts that fall short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass a bond could be eligible for hardship funding from the state, if the measure was favored by a simple majority. However, school districts that successfully pass bonds get funding preference.

“In the old days you wouldn’t even attempt a bond if you didn’t think you had a pretty good shot of passage--it was too miserable an undertaking,” said Bob Blattner, director of legislative services for School Services of California, a private firm that advises and lobbies for public schools. “Now there is a funding advantage . . . even if you don’t win.”

In Santa Ana, the school board is considering six proposals, ranging from seeking a whopping $383 million, all from residents, down to $72 million.

The most expensive program would build and pay for two new high schools, nine new elementary schools, the modernization of 20 older schools and the air conditioning of all schools that now swelter in hot months, Vail said.

The most likely scenario, however, is that the board will have a bond program that totals about $347 million--$164 million of which would be sought from voters, he said. The rest of the funding is expected from the state.

Since 1974, the Santa Ana school district has been growing by 1,400 students a year and in recent years the population at its 48 schools has increased by 2,000 students annually.

Huntington Beach school officials plan to repair school buildings that are literally sinking if their bond passes. The high school district also hopes to improve campus security, retrofit buildings for earthquake safety and repair deteriorating roofs, drainage, heating, plumbing and electrical systems.

Capistrano administrators are eyeing a plan to build one new high school, a middle school and two new elementary schools for their fast-growing district. The district also intends to add Internet-capable wiring and replace roofs at older schools.

Because Capistrano has nine Mello-Roos districts within its boundaries already, where residents are taxed for schools, roads and among public projects, those areas would be carved out of a November bond so residents would not be double taxed.

In Irvine, educators say they have all but run out of fiscal options to finance top-notch programs in the schools.

“There really aren’t that many ways for school districts to raise revenue. Bonds are only for building things,” says Paul Reed, the Irvine Unified School District’s deputy superintendent for business services. “We have the money to build schools. We don’t have the money to operate them.”

Reed says the district can continue its current level of spending for just one more year before it would fall below the 3% budget reserves required by the state.

School officials have until July to decide if they wish to put bond measures on the November ballot. Election costs range from one to two dollars per registered district voter, said Rosalyn Lever, Orange County registrar of voters.

All the districts see hope in Brea’s success Tuesday on the heels of Buena Park’s last year.

Before November, tax-wary Orange County voters hadn’t endorsed one general obligation school bond since 1975.