Ads Start for Plan to Ease School Bond Approval

California teachers and business leaders launched their campaign Tuesday to ease passage of local school bonds with a radio spot advertising “smaller class size” and “tougher accountability.”

However, no classes will automatically shrink and no teachers will be held accountable under the terms of the March ballot initiative being pushed by the California Teachers Union and its allies. Proposition 26 simply allows school districts to pass bond issues with a majority rather than a two-thirds vote.

In the radio advertisement, a man and a woman argue over which aspect of the initiative is more important--class size or accountability--and a second man interrupts to tell them they are both right.

“Folks, you don’t have to choose,” he says. “Prop. 26 lets you have both.”

A television version of the commercial touches on the same basic themes.

Opponents of the ballot initiative, expected to be one of the most hotly contested, claim the new ad campaign is a deceptive attempt to tap into popular sentiment while dodging the unpopular: Proposition 26 could increase property taxes.

“They found out that people aren’t wild about higher property taxes,” said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “So they thought, ‘What can we graft onto here that’s symbolic and looks good?’ ”

Since 1986, 40% of local school bonds have failed to meet the two-thirds vote prescribed by the state Constitution, though in recent years the failure rate has dropped to about a third. All but a handful would have met a 50%-plus-one majority, the current standard for statewide school bonds.

From the beginning, it was clear that the Fix Our Schools Now! campaign would face an uphill battle. For one thing, voters rejected a nearly identical measure in 1993.

Political consultant Gale Kaufman said several things are different this year: a better economy, an electorate more willing to invest in schools and the larger turnout expected for a presidential primary.

Nonetheless, Kaufman estimated that the Proposition 26 campaign will cost at least $10 million, a sum that led the union to team up with Reed Hastings, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. In return for Hastings’ endorsement and financial support--expected to climb to the millions--the union agreed to let independent charter schools dip into the bond funds it would generate.

The campaign’s own polls have shown what outside polls suggest, Kaufman said: Solid voter support for the initiative crumbles with the mention of taxes. Unlike state bonds, whose debt costs are paid by the general fund, local bonds are supported by taxpayers.

Though supporters deny that such costs would ever become significant, opponents claim property taxes could double. A radio spot in their low-budget campaign--about $1 million--which also began Tuesday, says, “Everyone votes on Prop. 26 bonds, but only we property owners pay.”

Accountability in the initiative requires districts involved in a bond campaign to publish a full list of projects they intend to complete. It commits them to two internal audits a year.

The ghost of the Belmont Learning Complex hovers over the campaign. Construction of the $200-million downtown Los Angeles high school was begun on a toxic site despite extensive internal reviews, though Proposition 26 supporters point out that in the end it was not built with local bond funds.

Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable--which is co-sponsor of the initiative--said the measure’s accountability provisions give taxpayers legal protections. If funds are not used appropriately, he said, “taxpayers have the right to sue.”

The campaign’s World Wide Web site can be found at https://www.letsfixourschools.com. The opposition site is https://www.saveourhomes.com.