L.A. Unified to get $600 million for construction

Despite declining public school enrollment, Los Angeles will be able to count on more than $600 million in state school construction funds because of a bill signed Sunday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, local officials said.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, area legislators and top officials of the Los Angeles Unified School District staged a last-minute lobbying blitz to urge Schwarzenegger to sign the measure.

The money is needed to close part of an estimated $2-billion deficit in the district’s $20-billion construction and modernization program, the nation’s largest school building effort.

L.A. Unified had long expected to claim these funds, but the money was at risk because of declining enrollment in the country’s second-largest school system. State rules, school officials said, magnify the effect of declining enrollment on eligibility, a flaw the bill aimed to address.

Even with fewer students, the district still has thousands in year-round schools and thousands more bused away from their neighborhoods, a situation the district wants to eliminate. Ultimately, enrollment is expected to rise again. Space could be tighter still with a reduction in the dropout rate, which is close to 50% by some estimates.

The goal of the building program is to allow every student to attend a neighborhood school that operates on a traditional, two-semester calendar by 2012. Even under the best scenario, thousands of students still would attend campuses with portable classrooms that limit space for recreation.

“On a scale of one to 10, this news is absolutely a 10,” said school board President Monica Garcia. “This legislation was the priority for Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District.”

When the school construction effort began in the late 1990s, local officials worried that there would never be enough state and local dollars to go around. That’s still a concern, but declining enrollment created another crisis: L.A. Unified might not be able to touch state money that was, in essence, waiting in the bank.

The Assembly bill, sponsored by Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), gives school districts more ways to qualify for state money. Districts now can use 10-year enrollment projections, or they can look at local birth rates. They also can count how many high school students live in a particular area. Before, if a school district provided a seat somewhere for a high school student -- even if that seat was far across town -- the district didn’t qualify for funding to build a seat in the student’s neighborhood.

“You could never get state money to get that child off the bus,” said Eric Bakke, senior legislative analyst for L.A. Unified. “But if you can base the eligibility formula on where that child lives, you can get that child off the bus.”

Bill backers included the Anaheim City School District, the California School Boards Assn., the California Teachers Assn. and the Orange Unified School District.

“Other school districts are also experiencing the problems that we are,” said Vernon Billy, L.A. Unified’s chief lobbyist.

Resistance came from the state Department of Finance, which expressed concern over increased pressure for school bonds. Schwarzenegger did not commit to a position in advance, but a spokesman said Sunday that the governor “supports the objective of the bill.”

The bill doesn’t come close to erasing L.A. Unified’s entire construction deficit or even all of the impediments at the state level. For example: State funds that are supposed to pay for 50% of construction don’t cover nearly that much in high-cost L.A. A bill to take on that issue didn’t make it to the governor’s desk.

“We have a lot more work to do on this,” Garcia said, “but this was a critical piece to keep our program at full speed.”

howard.blume@latimes.com