California public school and community college district voters approved $20 billion of construction loans in 2022, with more passing in 2023, using the Proposition 39 financing capability. The California Association of Bond Oversight Committees (CABOC) estimates that a total of $197.8 billion of this type of construction loan now exists.
Proposition 39 made it easier to pass bond measures, but it also created a new emphasis on vigorous taxpayer oversight of construction expenditures. Indeed, when Proposition 39 was presented to the voters, the Legislature created a quid pro quo scenario, reducing the bond approval level to 55% from two-thirds, but requiring extensive taxpayer oversight and public visibility.
This oversight includes a performance audit that “… shall be conducted in accordance with the Government Auditing Standards issued by the Comptroller General of the United States for financial and performance audits.” Education code section 15286
When a standards-compliant performance audit is not present, however, laws can be broken, crimes committed, and voters are left to conclude that their tax money is not being spent wisely. A search engine’s worth of indictments, allegations and plea deals are discoverable on the internet, relating to school districts and construction. This is in addition to the traditional occurrence of excessive change orders, cost overruns and delivery delays.
For instance, the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) uncovered evidence of fraud, misappropriation or other illegal activities in 65% of the “extraordinary audits” it conducted between 2018 and 2023. While not all construction related, these cases were referred to law enforcement authorities.
In Santa Barbara County, an assistant school district superintendent and three construction company executives were charged with 74 counts of misappropriation of public monies, embezzlement of public funds, diversion of construction funds and grand theft. In San Francisco, a former school district facilities manager overseeing a district construction account pleaded guilty to fraud and tax evasion in an alleged scheme to divert $500,000 out of a construction escrow account.
But the greater mystery may be when there is no oversight performance audit and wrong-doing goes unexamined.
A statewide compliance survey released in October 2022 revealed that performance audits produced by most school districts fail to sufficiently comply with the required standards, according to a common sense, reasonable evaluation. Missing and non-standards-compliant performance audits deprive the public and those overseeing construction bond programs of valuable information that could be used to meaningfully evaluate the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds.
Many performance audits are just over two-pages in length, and include a single compliance audit objective. They typically fail to audit or provide information on program effectiveness and results, internal control or any prospective analysis of the construction program, which is usually the largest construction program ever undertaken by a school district.
The comptroller general’s government auditing standards manual describes how government officials, such as school districts, should use a performance audit to assure the public that its money is well-spent. These standards describe the categories of audit objectives: program effectiveness and results; internal control; compliance; and prospective analysis. It also lists 32 examples of audit objectives, illustrating each of the four categories. This information provides objective analysis, findings and conclusions in order to improve program performance and operations, reduce costs and increase public accountability.
School and community college districts engaging firms to produce the Proposition 39 performance audits should include audit objectives from a broad array of audit categories, so that the public truly understands the expenditure of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds.
And taxpayers should carefully review the Proposition 39 construction bond program documents of their school and community college districts, including the performance audit, which are required by law to be posted on district websites.
•••
Bryan Scott serves on two citizens’ bond oversight committees in Brentwood, and in 2023 he was named the Member of the Year by the California Association of Bond Oversight Committees. He is the creator of “Becoming an Effective Watchdog: A Necessary Primer for California School Construction Bond Oversight.”
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
An off-limits, aged and rusting play structure, Santa Rita Union School District
Credit: Santa Rita Union School District
In the coming days, Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to confirm his commitment to place a state school construction bond on the November ballot.
What he hasn’t committed to yet — but must decide in the next 10 days — is whether to reform a method of sharing state matching money that has long favored property-rich districts over their property-poor neighbors.
Along with a June 27 deadline to write ballot language, Newsom and legislative leaders face the threat of a lawsuit challenging the legality of the present system that ignores vast inequalities in districts’ ability to upgrade and repair schools. The public interest law firm Public Advocates filed its warning, a 21-page demand letter, with state officials in February. Public Advocates is calling for a new method that shares more state bond proceeds with districts that need more help. Their proposal focuses only on repairing and renovating facilities, not new construction.
The possibility of litigation drawing attention to funding inequalities would endanger the chances that a bond would pass — just when the state will run out of distributing the last matching money from the last bond, eight years ago. That would leave the state with no funding to help districts meet the rising cost of school construction.
Newsom’s aides and legislative leaders have expressed interest in proposals for a fairer system of allocating state funding, “but it is far from clear where the equity conversation will land,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney for Public Advocates.
“As long as state bond funding continues to exacerbate rather than redress local wealth disparities, the constitutional problem and our legal demands remain.”
Past California State School Board President Michael Kirst agreed. “We need to complete the job of making California school finance more equitable. This is a long-overlooked and needed area for political action.”
Late last month, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee and authored a bill establishing a construction bond, predicted that the measure would be between $10 billion and $12 billion for TK-12 and community colleges. Whether it would include construction money for four-year universities hasn’t been announced.
The Coalition for Adequate School Housing or CASH, the influential lobby representing school districts and school construction contractors, opposes including the University of California and California State University. It argues schools and community colleges need the full $14 billion in Muratsuchi’s bill — and more — to meet higher costs of construction, demands for climate-resilient schools, requirements for transitional kindergarten classrooms, and evolving needs for student wellness and after-school activities.
Talks between Newsom and legislative leaders must also settle how much should be designated for new construction relative to repairing and renovating existing buildings, and how much should be set aside for removing lead in water.
But the most contentious issue will be the distribution formula: determining how much money districts must raise in property taxes to qualify for a matching amount from a state bond. For the past 25 years, every district has ponied up the same percentage match on a first-come, first-served basis: a 50-50 split for new construction and 40% district and 60% match from the state for upgrading facilities.
The result has been predictable: Those districts with higher property values have gotten a disproportionately large piece of the pie.
‘The very definition of a regressive tax’
The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley examined the state funding distribution of the 813 school districts that received state modernization funding from 1998, when the current distribution method was created, through 2023. The analysis showed that the quintile of districts with the lowest assessed property value — those with a median of $798,000 per student — received $2,970 in modernization funding per student, while the districts in the highest quintile, where the median assessed property value was $2.3 million per student, received $7,910 per student — more than two-and-a-half times as much. As a result, districts with a lower assessed property value per student must impose higher property taxes on its residents than would a higher-wealth district to upgrade a school building.
“Imposing a greater tax burden on a community of lesser wealth is the very definition of a regressive tax,” said Jeff Vincent, co-director of the Center for Cities + Schools.
Compounding the problem of low property values in many districts is the state restriction that limits a district’s bonding limit to 1.25% of a district’s total assessed property value for elementary and high school districts and 2.5% of the total value for unified districts.
Combine those two factors, and you have the dilemma facing hundreds of districts including, the 3,200-student Santa Rita Union Elementary District and neighboring Salinas City Elementary School District, both in Monterey County.
“Our biggest difficulty is bonding capacity. We’ve basically bonded at our allowable capacity, and we did that to try to build up what we need for the state matching in particular,” said Santa Rita Superintendent Melissa Alderman.
The track in need of repair is at New Republic Elementary, Santa Rita Union School DistrictCredit: Santa Rita Union School District
Deteriorating school roof at Lincoln Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
Damaged outside window sill of a portable, Laurel Wood Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
A deteriorating entrance to an aging portable at Lincoln Elementary, Salinas City Elementary School DistrictCredit: Salinas City Elementary School District
With the latest bonds, Santa Rita nearly topped out at $27 million — far short of the more than $100 million the district needs to renovate, repair, and replace its four elementary and two middle schools at state standards.
The difference would provide what many districts take for granted: There would be appropriately sized gyms for middle school; the deteriorating track would be paved so that their schools could host meets; 40-year-old portable classrooms sitting on dirt would be replaced with more spacious modular classrooms on concrete foundations. There would also be transitional kindergarten classrooms the district can’t build and room for student and family service partnerships that the district has had to decline.
“All of our roofs would not be leaking; all of our gutters would be unrusted; tree roots wouldn’t be breaking up the sidewalks,” Alderman said. “Alarm systems not going off in the middle of the night because it rained too hard and something shorted.”
Santa Rita can generate only $7,740 per student in bond capacity; across the Salinas Valley, Carmel Unified can raise $190,000 per student. With English learners comprising nearly half of students and a high rate of poverty, Alderman worries about adding to families’ property tax burden — even if she could ask for another bond.
Santa Rita qualified for the state’s financial hardship assistance funding for the full cost of projects that exceeded funding capacity, but Alderman says the formula for determining the amount of hardship aid was insufficient.
“We’ve gotten just enough funding to always be making repairs and patching and hoping a big emergency doesn’t happen,” she said.
Salinas City Elementary School District, with 8,200 students whose families are similar to those in Santa Rita, is somewhat better off. It passed two bonds for $175 million two years ago, which has placed “an incredible burden” on the community but will cover about a third of its modernization needs, said Superintendent Rebeca Andrade. She worries whether, after chipping away at replacing roofs, ramps and windows, there will be enough left for a community priority: upgrading kitchens in every school so that children can eat fresh food like the vegetables grown and picked in nearby fields.
Public Advocates’ proposal
Salinas and Santa Rita would be among the districts that would get significantly more state funding under Public Advocates’ proposal.
Instead of a 60% match for all districts, money would be distributed based on assessed value per student. Under its latest proposal, the districts with the most property wealth — Beverly Hills, Carmel Valley, San Francisco Unified, and Sunnyvale School District Elementary in Silicon Valley — would be among those receiving a 5% state match for contributing 95% of the project’s cost.
The property-poorest—Bakersfield, Dinuba, Lindsay, San Bernardino City and Fresno Unified — would get a 95% match for contributing 5%. Salinas City Elementary would get an 81% match for contributing 19%, while Santa Rita would get 87% state funding for contributing a 13% local match, enabling the district to stretch its dollars and broaden its vision for creating a quality learning environment.
Affeldt said something like a 5%-95% scheme is needed to begin to offset local wealth disparities.
The Center for Cities + Schools has also calculated the impact of a 20%-80% match, which would be less progressive while flattening the gains and losses that districts would receive.
But there’s a caveat: The state match provides funding on a per-student basis, not on the size of a project, said Tom Pace, vice chair of CASH and the director of facilities of San Bernardino City Unified. “So we’re talking about a percentage of the grant amount, not a percentage of construction costs,” Pace said. “The majority of the costs associated with building schools are borne by local districts.”
Since the current system of matching funds started in 1998, school districts have raised nearly $3 for $1 contributed by the state — $125 billion to $43 billion, according to the Center for Cities + Schools.
A formula that sends a larger match to districts like San Bernardino would go a long way to solve inequitable funding, Pace said. But it will take an adequate level of state funding to address the full problem, he said. “San Marcos High School is one of the nicest high schools I’ve ever seen. I got confused with (CSU San Marcos) when I drove past,” he said. “There is no way that San Bernardino will ever have a high school that looks like that because of our low assessed value and growth.”
Big tax-base exceptions
There’s a correlation between residents’ income and assessed value per student. The quintile of districts with the highest assessed property per student generally consists of small, wealthy communities like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and, in Silicon Valley, Saratoga. The quintile of districts with the lowest property values per student are generally low-income communities.
But there are significant exceptions, including urban areas with big industrial and commercial tax bases. Oakland Unified, with 76% low-income families but $1.6 billion in bonding capacity, and Los Angeles Unified, with 81% low income families but $18.4 billion bonding capacity, would see their modernization match drop from 60% to 55%, under Public Advocates’ proposal. San Diego Unified, the state’s second-largest district, would see its state share drop from 60% to 51%.
CASH, which has underwritten previous campaigns to promote state school facilities bonds and on its own authored the last bond that voters passed, in 2015, also opposes Public Advocates’ proposal. Reforms that would prioritize school facility funding based on lower assessed valuation “appear to create winners and losers and disrupt the stability of the current School Facility Program,” CASH said in a May 23 letter to Newsom and legislative leaders. “CASH advises against hastily adopting significant changes to the (current program) without fully vetting their impact.”
CASH’s position is that improving access to the existing school facilities program is the way to address concerns. Tiny districts with under $15 million in assessed value would automatically get full assistance; its proposal also would reserve 20% of funding for districts that could qualify for up to 100% state aid. “Those typically end up being lower wealth districts that have struggled to provide local matches,” said CASH Chair Alan Reising, the business services administrator for Long Beach Unified.
Public Advocates argues a sliding-scale system would eliminate most of the need for the financial hardship program.
CASH would also permit supplemental funding for priorities like transitional kindergarten classrooms and climate resiliency measures. Public Advocates agrees with this concept and would include community schools’ additional space needs. It also supports setting aside 5% of state funding for technical guidance, since many districts lack the expertise to compete for what has been a first-come, first-served program.
But CASH would maintain at least the current 60% state match for all districts, with some districts entitled up to 70%, based on an index of high-needs students and bonding capacity. It’s a slight variation of Muratsuchi’s AB 247, the current proposal for the November bond. An analysis by Cities + Schools found that the nudge toward equitable funding would have little effect, other than to add costs.
“These are token changes that are really not going to move the needle in any meaningful way,” said Vincent, the co-director of the center.
Analogy with famous Serrano lawsuit
Public Advocates has filed a number of regulatory challenges and lawsuits over the past 25 years on education adequacy and funding, so it’s not surprising that it is focusing on facilities funding. What is surprising is that a similar threat hasn’t risen sooner.
Fifty-three years ago, setting a precedent for the nation, the California Supreme Court struck down relying on local property taxes to fund schools as violating the constitutional right of students in low-wealth districts to have access to an equal education. That led to a state system of equalizing K-12 funding and then, in 2013, to the Local Control Funding Formula. It directs extra resources to districts based on their numbers of English learners, low-income students, and foster children.
Public Advocates argues the current system of funding school facilities is comparable to the property-tax-based system of operating schools that the court rejected in the Serrano v. Priest decision.
Many states insufficiently fund school facilities, but California’s present system remains one of the most regressive because it ignores vast differences in property wealth, Vincent said. Public Advocates based its model on Kansas’ sliding scale.
It’s an open question whether Newsom, legislative leaders, and ultimately voters would agree to a formula with new “winners” and “losers” to achieve a more equitable distribution of state funding.
As an administrator of a district that would gain the most from Public Advocates’ plan and as one of 11 members of CASH’s board of directors, Pace said, “I like the sliding scale; I would just advocate that there be a base amount that you start with.”
Otherwise, he foresees the breaking apart of a unified front for a state bond, and it is critical for today’s children to pass a bond this year, Pace said. “To pass a bond, you have to have a coalition, and coalitions generally don’t vote for things that are equitable, because you’re going to have people that say, ‘Well, if I contribute (to the campaign), what do I get out of it?’”
Kirst, who co-authored the Local Control Funding Formula, nonetheless encourages state leaders to press forward. “The issue has flown under the radar for so many years,” he said. “School construction has been controlled by groups that sponsor the initiative, but that does not excuse the lack of attention.”
Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
Legislators are poised to place a $10 billion construction bond for K-12 schools and community colleges on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. If voters agree, the money will replenish a pool of state matching money that ran dry for building new schools and for fixing old ones – benefiting many districts.
With 34 authors and co-authors, Assembly Bill 247, laying out the details of the bond, is expected to pass easily. It will receive a hearing today, only two days after it was made public after weeks of negotiations. The Assembly and Senate are expected to approve it on Wednesday, the deadline for final wording for November initiatives. Approval will require two-thirds majority support.
“California urgently needs a statewide school bond to repair dilapidated and unsafe school facilities and to invest in our children to meet 21st century educational and workforce needs,” stated Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), chair of the Assembly Education Committee and primary author of AB 247.
The last school construction bond, passed in 2016, was for $9 billion. Since then, needs have piled up. The Legislature has added a new grade, transitional kindergarten, and appropriated $4 billion to turn schools into community schools, demanding more space for services, from tutoring to mental health. Increasing threats from flooding, heat, and fires raise the need for climate-resilient responses, from shade structures to energy and air conditioning upgrades.
The bond will allow districts to use the money for all of those purposes and seek a supplemental grant to construct or renovate transitional kindergarten classrooms and build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them. The bond would also set aside $150 million to remove lead from school water.
School districts must pass bonds through property taxes to take advantage of state subsidies. Critics have long charged that the formula for matching money—60% of any qualifying cost of a modernization project and 50% for new construction—has sharply disadvantaged school districts with low property values per student. With larger tax bases and the ability to spread the tax burden, property-rich districts can issue larger bonds, gobbling up a disproportionate share of the state-matching money.
The state’s $10 million bond will use a slightly different formula, offering a little more to districts with lower property rates. But the system will remain largely intact – and unconstitutional, said reform advocate John Affeldt, managing attorney for the public interest law firm Public Advocates. In February, it filed a complaint with state officials, threatening a lawsuit on the grounds that the facilities program discriminates against students in low-wealth districts and denies them an opportunity for an equal education.
The bill’s authors have slightly modified the distribution formula. A sliding-scale system will give districts with high rates of low-income students and, to a lesser extent, low assessed property per student as much as an additional 5 percentage point match: 65% for renovations and 55% for new construction.
Public Advocates recommended using assessed property value per student, which it says is the most important variable when measuring capacity to raise local money to modernize schools, as the yardstick to determine the size of districts’ state match.
The bill creates a point system for rewarding extra money that emphasizes the percentage of low-income students, foster children, and English learners in a district. Affeldt said it likely will award Los Angeles Unified, with a high rate of poor students but above-average property tax wealth per student, extra undeserved state money.
The maximum 65% match won’t help property-poor districts, from 3,500-student Del Norte Unified in the rural north to 46,000-student San Bernardino City Unified, highlighted in Public Advocates’ complaint. Districts like these districts would need an 80% to 90% state match to raise enough money to fix critical conditions and add facilities that property-wealthy districts take for granted – but there cannot be enough funding for them as long as every district is guaranteed a 60% state match, Affleld said.
Public Advocates will consult the residents and community organizations it represents in property-poor districts about what the next step will be, Affeldt said. “But what I can say is the Legislature could not have written a better roadmap to get sued.”
The $10 billion bond will be divided as follows:
$8.5 billion to K-12. Of that:
$3.3 billion for new construction, which will include seismic retrofits, climate measures, preschool and health facilities, and replacement of unrepairable school buildings at least 75 years old;
$4 billion for modernization, which would include replacing portables at least 20 years old and $115 million carved out for the lead in water abatement;
$600 million for qualifying charter schools;
$600 million for career technical education facilities.
$1.5 billion for community colleges.
The $8.5 billion will cover only a portion of districts’ needs, and more than $3 billion may already be spoken for. The State Allocations Board keeps a list of approved projects that have not received funding. As with past state construction bonds, the bill would put these projects at the front of a new line; they’d get first dibs on the new money.
Funding for the state bond will be distributed, as in the past, on a first-come, first-served basis for those districts that can navigate the complex application process. Here, too, critics say favors large districts, which have full-time facilities staff who are well-versed in the system, and small property-wealthy districts that can afford consultants.
The authors of AB 247 have included two provisions to mitigate this. It will send the California Department of Education $5 million to provide technical expertise for completing applications for priority schools in small districts — those with fewer than 2,500 students with low assessed value per student and high numbers of low-income students.
Additionally, the bill calls for setting aside 10% of the new construction and modernization money for small districts and front them a piece of their expected award for grant management. However, the set-aside applies to all small districts, including property-wealthy districts that could consume a big share of the 10% total.
In another nod to fairness, the bond will expand financial hardship assistance in which the state covers the full cost of projects for districts too small to issue a bond; since 1998, these districts have received about 3% of state bond money. Eligibility would increase from a maximum of $5 million in bonding capacity to $15 million.
California has no regular or consistent method of helping with school facilities. Since 1998, when the current formula for sharing state bond proceeds took effect, voters have approved $54 billion in bonding. A string of successful bond approvals was broken in 2020 when voters defeated a proposed $15 billion bond measure, which, by bad luck of the draw, was Proposition 13. Voters may have confused it with the anti-tax measure of the same number in 1978.
Prop. 13 would have given CSU and UC $4 billion of the total. A bill competing with AB 247 would have, too. Weeks of negotiations settled with a smaller bond and no money for the universities. And that cleared the way for a separate $10 billion non-education bond that will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. It will focus on climate change, with funding to shore up defenses against wildfires, floods, and rising sea levels.
Oakland Unified recently completed construction of new academic buildings at Fremont High with funding from a previous bond measure.
Courtesy of Oakland Unified
A Senate Education Committee hearing Monday produced a unanimous vote in support of a $10 billion school construction bond initiative for the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. It also provided a preview of what likely will be the arguments over an anticipated lawsuit challenging how the state shares funding from state bonds with school districts.
The public interest law firm Public Advocates charges that the bond that Californians will vote on will perpetuate a system that will award districts with the highest property values the most state money and harm students in low-wealth districts. It opposes Assembly Bill 247, providing the language for the ballot initiative, and has threatened to sue unless there are substantial changes to the funding arrangement.
“Our property, poor district space, face an uphill battle in struggling to raise matching funds due to low property values, often the result of decades of systemic discrimination and underinvestment in communities of color,” Gary Hardie, Jr., a school board member in Lynwood Unified, located east of Los Angeles, and a representative of the California Association of Black School Educators, told the senators. “This just isn’t unfair; it’s morally unacceptable.” Public Advocates cited Lynwood’s plight in a complaint it filed with state officials in February.
The chairs of the Senate and Assembly Education Committees, both primary authors of the bill, disputed the characterizations, pointing to the bill’s changes to the allocation system, which they said make the funding system fairer.
“It just breaks my heart to hear some of the over the top rhetoric that they’re (Public Advocates) are using,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, responded. “If our goal is to serve the greatest good, the greatest number of socioeconomically disadvantaged students are in those districts that they’re calling wealthy like Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Long Beach Unified that lined up in support of this measure.”
The bill would increase the state’s share of matching money by as much as 5 percentage points, to 65% for renovations and 55% for new construction. It would expand the number of “hardship” districts with property tax bases too small to issue bonds, qualifying for 100% state aid.
Nicole Ochi, deputy managing attorney of Public Advocates, dismissed the changes as insignificant. “They will do nothing to reverse the regressive distribution of state bonds, nor will the minor changes to the financial hardship program address the punitive and burdensome nature of that system,” she said. “A sliding scale of 60 to 65% is not a meaningful equity adjustment. This is equity in name and not substance.”
Public Advocates proposed a much bigger sliding scale, with no guarantee under the current system that all districts receive at least 50% matching aid for new construction and 60% for modernization. Instead, districts with the lowest assessed property values per student, including Lynwood, San Bernardino City, and Fresno, would get a 95% match from the state, with a 5% local share; property-rich districts, like Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Santa Barbara, would get a 5% state funding for a 95% local contribution.
Ochi said Muratsuchi was conflating low-income demographics with low property values. Primarily low-income students attend Fresno, San Bernardino, Oakland, and Los Angeles. But Oakland and Los Angeles benefit from commercial and industrial wealth, with above-average assessed property per student. Their match from the state would decline slightly under Public Advocates’ proposal.
Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, chair of Senate Education, countered the assertion by Public Advocates that the widely supported school facility program, created in 1998, is unconstitutional. “The program’s framework is built on equity and fairness and, over time, it has evolved. It’s been updated to better serve California’s diverse school districts,” he said.
He said the revised program’s “balanced approach provides additional support to high-need districts while maintaining a sustainable and broadly supported funding model statewide.”
The committee voted 7-0 to back the bill, which the full Senate and Assembly are expected to pass on Wednesday. Public Advocates has yet to decide its next move, but it said nothing in the latest bond proposal has led it to change its position.
The article was clarified on July 5 to make it clear Sen. Josh. Newsom disagrees with the assertion that the school facility program’s funding formula is unconstitutional.
Voters in November will decide whether to give the Los Angeles Unified School District $9 billion in bond money to upgrade and improve school facilities, the school board decided unanimously Wednesday.
The bond is the largest ever put on the ballot by Los Angeles Unified and is just shy of a statewide school bond measure for $10 billion that will also be on the November ballot. For LAUSD’s bond measure to pass, at least 55% of voters will need to vote in favor — which would lead to an uptick in property taxes by roughly $25.04 for every $100,000 of assessed value, according to a district estimate.
District officials stated that the money is critical, and its schools’ needs urgent.
“We have seen schools that are built as Taj Mahals, with the latest and greatest technology, with beautiful green spaces, with outdoor classrooms, with stunning athletic facilities,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Wednesday. “Then you drive down the road one mile, and you see a completely different world that I cannot explain, and frankly, I cannot accept.”
More than 60% of LAUSD campuses are at least a half-century old, according to a board report. And schools across the district have more than $80 billion “of unfunded school facility and technology needs.”
Meanwhile, the costs of construction continue to grow — and have soared by 36% in the past four years, according to the report.
If passed, the $9 billion in bond money would help with efforts, including:
Ensuring schools have adequate safety features and are seismically sound
Modernizing campuses in-keeping with “21st century learning”
Improving disability access
Reducing discrepancies across older and newer schools
Expanding outdoor spaces, transitioning to a new food service model and improving energy efficiency
According to district materials, roughly “525 school buildings may need to be retrofitted, modernized, or replaced for earthquake safety.”
Amid widespread support at Wednesday’s meeting, Michael Hamner, the chair of LAUSD’s Bond Oversight Committee, said the district did not involve his committee enough in the bond’s development.
“While we understand the district’s infrastructure needs are greater than the pool of resources currently available to fund them, the process by which this bond measure was developed and put forward, without consultation of key stakeholders groups such as ourselves — and therefore outside public view — prevents us from providing any meaningful comment,” he said Wednesday.
In response, Carvalho stated that while the process of moving forward with this bond was condensed, the district will “not spare any opportunity” to consider the views of various stakeholders.
Amidst a declining district enrollment, some have also claimed the district should wait to move forward with a bond measure until they have a better understanding of their needs — especially as LAUSD is relying on taxpayers’ money.
Carvalho doubled down, however, on the project’s urgency.
He said that regardless of potential changes to enrollment and square footage, the district’s “critical need for facilities improvement will still be by far an excess of what we currently have and what we will have in the near future.”
According to school board member Rocio Rivas, improved facilities are associated with better academic outcomes, improved attendance and better mental health among students.
“Kids know when they have not the best — they don’t have it as good,” Board President Jackie Goldberg said Wednesday. “And they do feel, somehow or another, that maybe [they’re] just not worth as much.”
West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
More than 1 in 4 school districts are asking local voters to approve a record $39 billion in school construction bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot. Those that pass will jockey for some of the $10 billion in matching state funding that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are asking voters to approve by passing Proposition 2.
The facility needs of districts are huge and growing, even as the state’s overall enrollment is projected to decline over the next two decades.
Decades-old “portable” classrooms are falling apart; many air conditioners are malfunctioning, and classrooms without them are sweltering. Roofs leak, plumbing is corroding, wiring is fraying.
Parents worry about open access to insecure campuses. Schools lack room for new transitional kindergarten classes and plans for climate-resilient, energy-efficient buildings. Increasingly popular career and vocational education programs need up-to-date spaces.
Districts’ priorities will vary, and so will their capacity to pay for them. As in the past, districts with high property values, which often correlate to higher-than-average incomes of homeowners, will have a leg up on their property-poor neighbors in terms of what they can ask their taxpayers to approve. Some districts will check off items on their wish list; other districts will resort to triage, fixing what’s most falling apart.
In March 2020, amid first reports of a new pandemic on the horizon, statewide voters defeated a state construction bond with an unlucky ballot number. As a result, the state fell further behind in helping districts repair and rebuild school facilities.
“The defeat of Proposition 13 in 2020 and the pandemic made local districts more hesitant to put bonds on the ballot in 2022, so there is a lot of pent-up need,” said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley, which has extensively analyzed facilities needs in the state.
“The number of bond measures and the total amount reflect the aging and deferred maintenance of California schools, as well as the increasing urgency of HVAC and schoolyard upgrades to grapple with extreme heat.”
The center estimates that 85% of classrooms in California are more than 25 years old; 30% are between 50 and 70 years old, and about 10% are 70 years old or older.
Proposition 2 won’t significantly reform a first-come, first-served funding system if it passes, but it will clear out a backlog of unfunded school projects and partially replenish a state-building fund that has run dry.
With so much on the ballot competing for attention, Proposition 2 may escape many voters’ attention. Here are answers to questions that should help you fill out your ballot.
What’s on the ballot this year?
School districts have placed 252 bond proposals to raise $39.3 billion; 15 community college districts are asking voters to pass $10.6 billion worth of bonds, for a total of 267 proposed bonds valued at $49.9 billion. They range from a proposed $9 billion bond issue in Los Angeles, the state’s largest district, to $3 million sought by Pleasant View Elementary School District for repairs to its only school in Porterville.
How is school construction funded?
Unlike school districts’ operating money, which mostly comes from the state’s general fund, school construction and repairs remain largely a local responsibility, paid for by bonds funded by property taxes. Over the past 20 years, voters approved $181 billion in local bonds for public school and community college facility projects, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
That compares with $31.8 billion over the same period in state facilities bonds passed for school district and community college construction, plus $4.6 billion from the general fund that Gov. Gavin Newsom directed toward school construction. Altogether, the state has chosen to bear only 17% — one-sixth — of the total costs of school construction since 2001.
Bonds are essentially loans that are paid back, commonly over 25 or 30 years, with interest. In the past 10 years, interest rates have ranged from about 2% to nearly 5% and now are coming down again. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it would cost the general fund about $500 million annually for 35 years to pay back Proposition 2’s principal and interest.
What does it take to pass a bond?
The passage of a local bond requires a 55% approval rate. Despite the higher threshold than a simple majority, voters have approved 80% of local bonds on the ballot since 2001, according to CaliforniaFinance.com. The exception was in 2020, when voters defeated about half of local bonds, along with Proposition 13. The passage rate bounced back in 2022 to 72% — perhaps a good omen for proposals on Nov. 5 .
It takes only a 50% majority to pass a state construction bond. A voter survey in September by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 54% of likely voters said they would vote yes on Proposition 2, with 44% voting no.
The bulk of state funding for school and community college construction came in the early 2000s, during fast-growing enrollment and boom years for the state economy. However, the state issued no state bonds for a decade after 2006. The 2016 bond, Proposition 51, the last that voters approved, allocated $7 billion for K-12 and $2 billion for the state’s 115 community colleges. All of that funding has been distributed.
Are there limits to how much districts can tax property owners for school bonds?
Yes. Property taxes from school construction are capped at $60 per $100,000 of assessed valuation for unified districts, $30 per $100,000 for elementary or high school districts, and $25 per $100,000 for community college districts. A person whose home assessed value is at $400,000 (often significantly less than the market value) could pay up to $240 in annual property taxes in a unified district to pay off bonds’ principal and interest. Districts will stretch out the timeline for projects to stay under the limit.
How will Proposition 2 be divvied up?
The $10 billion will split:
$1.5 billion for community colleges
$8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
$4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
$3.3 billion for new construction
$600 million for facilities for career and technical education programs
$600 million for facilities for charter schools
$115 million set aside to remove lead in school water
Will all of this money go toward new projects?
No.
Unfunded projects left over from Prop. 51 in 2016 that are deemed eligible for funding will go to the front of the line. That’s how the system worked in the past when there wasn’t enough money to go around, and the Legislature applied the same language to Prop. 2. The rationale is that districts spent time and money hiring architects and engineers and drawing up plans, and shouldn’t be penalized for efforts done in good faith.
Those existing projects could consume half of the $8.5 billion for TK-12 funding. As of Aug. 31, the Office of Public Instruction, which tracks projects for funding, reported 1,000 school projects requesting $3.9 billion were already in line, with requests dating back to 2022. These break down to 812 modernization projects potentially eligible for $2.6 billion and 189 new construction projects eligible for $1.3 billion. The deadline for school districts to apply is Oct. 31, so the list may yet grow.
The Office of Public Construction cautioned that although the districts have filed paperwork, they have not been evaluated and approved for funding by the State Allocation Board under the rules in effect for Proposition 51. Some may have been built with local funding and are waiting for a state match.
With $40 billion in local projects on the ballot and probably a net of $4 billion available for modernization and new construction, there likely will not be enough to fund more than a portion, leading to the establishment of a new list of unfunded projects.
How does the match work?
The state awards matching money to districts to defray the qualifying cost of individual school projects; it does not provide a lump sum award for all of the districts’ requests. The state pays a uniform amount per student based on a school’s enrollment. Districts with growing enrollment, buildings over 75 years old, and a shortage of space can receive funding for new construction.
As with past state bonds, the state will split the cost of new construction; the state will contribute a higher match for modernization projects — 60% by the state and 40% by the district.
A new feature in Proposition 2 will provide a slightly larger state match — up to an additional 5 percentage points on a sliding scale system to districts with both high rates of low-income students, foster children and English learners, and, to a lesser extent, with a small bonding capacity per student, another measure of ability to issue construction bonds. Low-income districts like Fresno Unified and Los Angeles Unified will be eligible for 65% state assistance for renovations and 55% for new construction, lowering their share to 35% and 45%, respectively.
Is the formula fair?
Analyses by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley have concluded that the current system favors property-wealthy districts. Property-poor districts serving low-income families can’t afford bonds to qualify for state modernization subsidies to repair and upgrade schools.
The center’s data showed that the quintile of districts with the lowest assessed property value — those with a median of $798,000 of assessed value per student — received $2,970 per student in state modernization funding from 2000 to 2023, while the districts in the highest quintile, where the median assessed property value was $2.3 million per student, received $7,910 per student — more than two-and-a-half times as much.
Another factor is that matching money is distributed first-come, first-served, which favors large districts and small property-wealthy districts with an in-house staff of architects and project managers adept at navigating complex funding requirements.
Does Proposition 2 address these complaints?
To an extent, yes.
Proposition 2 would dedicate 10% of new funding for modernization and new construction to small districts, defined as those with fewer than 2,501 students. First-come, first-served wouldn’t apply to them.
Proposition 2 would expand financial hardship assistance in which the state pays for the total cost of projects in districts whose tax bases are too low to issue a bond. Eligibility would triple the threshold for hardship aid from a maximum of $5 million to $15 million in total assessed value; additional dozens of mostly rural districts would become eligible. Some have never issued a bond to fix schools that urgently need attention. Since 1998, about 3% of state bond money has been spent on hardship aid.
The higher state match for districts with large proportions of low-income students and English learners is a step toward addressing inequalities. However, critics led by the public interest law firm Public Advocates charge that it does not go far enough and uses flawed measures. Districts like 3,500-student Del Norte in the far north of the state and 46,000-student San Bernardino Unified in Southern California would need an 80% to 90% state match to raise enough money to fix critical conditions and add facilities that property-wealthy districts take for granted, they argue.
What else is new in Proposition 2?
The bond will allow districts to seek a supplemental grant to construct or renovate transitional kindergarten classrooms and build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them.
Districts must write an overall plan documenting the age and uses of all facilities when submitting a proposal for Prop. 2 funding. The lack of data has made it difficult to determine building needs statewide.
What would happen if Proposition 2 is defeated?
In the last 30 years, voters have nixed state construction bonds twice, but never twice in a row. If voters do that next month, the unmet building needs of districts struggling to address them will mount. The price to fix them will rise, forcing difficult choices on how to scale back and reorder priorities.
The $9 billion bond issue passed in 2016 would cost $11.8 billion to cover the same work in 2024, 31% more, according to a U.S. inflation calculator. A $10 billion bond passed in 2002 would require $17.5 billon in funding today.
The escalation in materials and labor costs since the pandemic may continue to soar — or maybe not. Voters on Prop. 2 will have to decide whether to take that gamble.
“We believe that voters will understand the value of making the critical repairs and classroom upgrades that our students need and deserve,“ said Rebekah Kalleen, legislative advocate for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing or CASH, the lobby representing school districts and school construction contractors campaigning for Prop. 2.
A student sits in the hallway at San Juan Unified’s El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
This story was updated to include additional information on community college projects.
Californians on Tuesday decisively passed a $10 billion initiative to support construction projects by TK-12 schools and community colleges. The victory of Proposition 2 will authorize the first state bond for school construction since 2016 and replenish state funding that had run dry.
With initial results from all precincts, 56.8% of voters backed the bond measure, and 43.2% opposed it. Still to be counted are mail-in ballots not yet received and provisional ballots. Support for the bond broke 60% in Los Angeles, Alpine, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Mendocino, Alameda, Yolo, Marin and San Mateo counties. Only counties in the state’s far north opposed it.
Proposition 2 was one of two $10 billion state bonds on the ballot; the other was Proposition 4 for funding efforts to abate the impact of climate change. Proposition 2 supporters had worried that voters might choose one over the other, but both passed easily.
“What has been clear is that people support it when they understand what Proposition 2 will do and its impact on schools,” said Molly Weedn, spokesperson for a pro-Proposition 2 campaign. “People are seeing the need in real time. When you have a leaky roof, it only gets leakier.”
The campaign, organized by the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), representing school districts and school construction interests that underwrote the effort, had not yet issued a statement Wednesday.
Even as enrollment in most districts is projected to continue to fall over the next decade, the need for unattended repairs and replacement of aging portable classrooms and buildings has mushroomed. The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley estimates that 85% of classrooms in California are more than 25 years old; 30% are between 50 and 70 years old, and about 10% are 70 years old or older.
Climate change has exposed more of the state to unprecedented levels of heat and unhealthy air and underscored the need to replace aging or defective heating and cooling systems.
The last state bond proposal, in March 2020, coincided with the emergence of Covid-19; anxiety over the virus contributed to its defeat as well as a majority of local districts’ construction bonds. Districts on the rebound from the pandemic were reluctant to ask voters to pass bonds in 2022.
Reflecting a suppressed demand for addressing facilities, a record 252 school districts asked voters on Tuesday to pass local construction bonds totaling $40 billion; an additional 13 community colleges proposed bonds totaling $10.6 billion. Thus, the demand for state help will far exceed the new funding.
Proposition 2, funded by the state’s general fund, needed a simple majority of voters to pass while local school bonds, which require increases in property taxes, require a 55% majority approval. A quick look at some of the larger proposals indicated voters were largely supportive, passing a $9 billion bond in Los Angeles Unified, a $900 million bond in Pasadena Unified and a $1.15 billion bond in San Jose Unified for upgrading facilities, with $283 set aside for housing for staff.
The portion of state funding for school districts will be distributed to projects on a matching basis, with the state contributing 50% of the eligible funding for new construction and 60% of the cost for renovations.
An estimated $3 billion in unfunded school projects from the 2016 bond measure, Proposition 55, will get first dibs at Proposition 2’s new construction and modernization money under the existing rules. Some of these projects have already been completed and will receive the funding retroactively. The rationale is that districts undertook the projects with the expectation that they would eventually receive state aid.
Once Proposition 2 runs out of money, a new line of unfunded projects will be formed for the next state bond. Interest and the principal for Proposition 2 will be repaid from the state’s general fund, at an estimated cost of $500 million per year for 35 years, according to an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
How money will be spent
The $10 billion will split as follows:
$1.5 billion for community colleges
$8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
$4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
$3.3 billion for new construction
$600 million for facilities for career and technical education programs
$600 million for facilities for charter schools
$115 million to remove lead from school drinking water
The portion of Proposition 2 for community colleges will help renovate existing buildings, construct new classrooms and even replace sewage lines. The chancellor’s office earlier this year already approved 27 projects — totaling about $709 million — that will be covered by the bond measure in a first round of funding. They include projects across the state, from Shasta College in the north to Imperial Valley College near the Mexico border.
Across the college system, with 115 brick-and-mortar community colleges, more than half of the buildings were built more than 40 years ago, said Hoang Nguyen, director of facilities for the system.
“It’s not like we’re sitting on newer facilities or anything like that. Our campuses are older,” he said. “So this proposition would be of great help.”
The state’s largest district, the Los Angeles Community College District, got approval for four projects in the first round. That includes a new building to house Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s automotive technology, diesel technology and rail systems technology programs, as well as a new kinesiology building at Los Angeles City College. There will also be sewer replacement at Los Angeles Valley and Pierce colleges.
“We’d like to think that our students, if they’re learning in these beautiful new buildings, will feel motivated to complete their training, get their certificates and get an education,” said Leigh Sata, the district’s chief facilities officer.
The portion for TK-12 will set aside 10% of new funding for modernization and new construction for small districts, defined as those with fewer than 2,501 students. It will also expand financial hardship assistance in tiny districts whose tax bases are too low to issue a bond. The state will pick up the full tab for those districts.
The bond will also allow districts to seek supplemental money to build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them. But, contrary to the wishes of early education advocates, it won’t dedicate funding to one of the most pressing needs that districts face: adding more classrooms or renovating existing space for transitional kindergarten students.
Except for the set-aside for small districts, Proposition 2 will continue allotting matching money on a first-come, first-served basis, which favors large districts and small, property-wealthy districts with an in-house staff of architects and project managers adept at navigating complex funding requirements.
It also won’t significantly provide a bigger state match for districts with low property values; many lack a large enough tax base to issue bonds to meet basic building needs. Data from the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley shows that property-wealthy districts, with more taxable property per student, have received a disproportionately higher share of matching state funding over the past 25 years.
One of the system’s outspoken critics is the nonprofit public interest law firm Public Advocates. Its managing partner, John Affeldt, said Wednesday that in passing Proposition 2, “Voters recognized the reality that so many facilities need significant modernization. But I don’t think voters are also aware of and approving the underlying distribution of the bond funds that send so many more dollars to high-wealth districts instead of low-wealth districts.
“We’ll continue to be a voice to make sure the state creates a system that equitably treats all its students,” he said.
EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to the article.
Cindy Crisanto, an ironworker apprentice, says the child care benefit is “a lifesaver” that allows her to pursue a career in construction. She is one of the few women ironworkers on the construction site at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
Credit: Courtesy of Cindy Crisanto
After bouncing around in several job paths, including retail sales, office receptionist and warehouse worker, Cindy Crisanto has begun a potentially lucrative career as a welder and ironworker — a field with very few women.
She made that switch with the aid of a new state apprenticeship program that provides child care funds during her on-the-job training, helping her to overcome an obstacle many women face in trying to enter the construction trades while also raising a family.
Crisanto — a single mother of two elementary school-aged boys — is receiving about $800 a month in state subsidies for child care expenses, a part of a push to bolster the ranks of women and other underrepresented people into such male-dominated jobs as plumbers, electricians, carpenters and welders. She is now in her first year of an apprenticeship program run by an ironworkers union local in connection with Cerritos College, a community college near Los Angeles.
“It makes a huge difference. It’s a lifesaver,” Crisanto, 36, of Los Angeles, said of the subsidy. The money is particularly helpful because the very early work hours at construction sites make it hard to find and otherwise afford child care at schools and regular centers, she and others explain. Under the apprenticeship with Ironworkers Local 433, she begins working at 6:30 a.m. installing window and elevator structures at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art under construction south of downtown Los Angeles.
The child care subsidy is part of a wider campaign spearheaded by Gov. Gavin Newsom to expand apprenticeship opportunities in many different fields for Californians usually not pursuing college degrees.
The goal is to enroll a half-million Californians in state-supported apprenticeship programs by 2029 — a huge increase from the approximately 84,000 in 2018 when Newsom announced the effort.
The related child care funding comes from the Equal Representation in Construction Apprenticeship Grant (ERICA), for which the state has appropriated a total of $15.6 million over two years. A participant in pre-apprenticeships — readiness programs that often get them up to speed in math and general work skills — can receive up to $5,000 a year for child care. Those, like Cristano, in the next step, the actual paid on-the-job apprenticeships, can get up to $10,0000 annually.
Officials and labor experts say the child care money represents a new strategy after past efforts to diversify the trades by gender showed little progress. The program is supposed to help “women, non-binary and underserved communities interested in a rewarding career in the building and construction industry,” according to the state Division of Apprenticeship Standards. (Men are eligible as well, but they are not the prime target.) The child care grants became available last year from the state budget and are distributed via labor unions, nonprofit organizations and colleges chosen in a competition.
Another nearly $9 million is earmarked for campaigns to recruit more women, to run career fairs and to offer workplace training.
The goal is to turn those women, many of whom barely made ends meet in the past, into skilled construction professionals earning close to $100,000 a year.
Although the aid seems to be encouraging more women to enroll as apprentices, officials say it is too early to determine whether the program will significantly boost the number who persist through the four years or so the paid trainings can require.
Some 37 women are among the nearly 1,200 apprentices in Cerritos College’s ironworkers program run with the union, according to Graciela Vasquez, the school’s dean of continuing education. But that is about 40% higher than before the child care money and the accompanying push to attract more women into the trades, she said.
In the past, female participation in state-authorized apprenticeships across California could hardly have been smaller.
Women comprise only about 10% of the nearly 95,100 current job training apprenticeships that are formally recognized by the state and receive some state money across many industries, according to the Division of Apprenticeship Standards. Even worse, just 3% or 4% of apprentices in building trades such as carpentry, plumbing, ironworking and electrical are women. However, women are strongly represented in a few apprenticeships, mainly in health care, child care and culinary services.
With the child care grants and other funds for recruitment and training, enrollment of women apprentices in construction appears to be moving “in the right direction,” said Adele Burnes, deputy chief of the state apprenticeship standards agency. “We hope to start to see higher percentages in one, two or three years from now.”
Finding and affording child care can be more difficult because of construction fields’ early work shifts and the need sometimes to work far from home. So the grant had to be “a bit more flexible if we really want to help people in the trades,” said Burnes. The subsidies can be used for private babysitters, even friends and family members, with proper proof of the work hours, as well as for day care centers and after-school care.
Crisanto first earned a certificate in welding at a local adult school and was connected to the career apprenticeship, which includes some classes run by Cerritos College. She uses the child care grant to pay a relative who gets her children ready and takes them to school in the morning. That allows her to pursue a career path that is much more fulfilling and well paid than her past jobs.
She and other women say they sometimes face doubts and harassment in a male-dominated industry. But she added, “I love what I do. That’s what keeps me going, seeing I can keep up with the guys and keep learning. I am making something of myself. And this is my reward: my career.”
The subsidies may make a difference, said Felicia Hall, a workforce development manager for Tradeswomen, an organization that recruits women into construction careers and runs apprenticeship readiness programs across California. “That is one thing we hear from all our mentees, even men. Child care is the No. 1 thing that hinders them from completing the program,” she said.
(The apprenticeships are usually run by councils of labor unions and industries, with the state looking over their shoulders.)
In some locations, the overwhelming number of men in a trade has caused more men than women to receive the child care subsidy, officials report. Nevertheless, Jeremy Smith, of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, said the funds are especially helpful to keep women on the job and make “their work-life balance much easier.”
Still, with state revenues in decline, it is not certain whether the money will continue to be available after 2025. Women apprentices hope the program survives.
Rocio Campos, an apprentice ironworker, on a recent construction job at the Los Angeles Zoo. Child care subsidies are important for her.Cerritos College
Rocio Campos came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 10 and now lives in Littlerock in northern Los Angeles County. Since she was a teenager, she held various jobs, including office work, sales, cashier, drafting and design. Sometimes, she took a second job on weekends to help pay bills. Tired of instability and low pay, she tried to enter a nursing program at a community college but wound up on a waiting list because it was overcrowded. Instead, she took a welding class and enjoyed that. That led to an apprenticeship with Ironworkers Local 433 and jobs assembling solar energy panels and windmills.
A divorced mother, she was able to get between $800 and $1,200 monthly in ERICA child care funds that she uses to pay her mother to take care of her two sons, ages 11 and 17, while she is on the job, sometimes out of state. Previously, she paid her mother out of her own wages. The grant “really helped me out a lot,” Campos, 36, said. And she finds on-the-job satisfaction from “assembling things from bottom to top.”
An ironwork apprentice, for example, usually starts earning about $24 an hour, and that goes up to $47 or so over four years by the time they graduate and become a journey person. Some work can be seasonal with unpaid breaks between projects, but overtime pay can be substantial as well.
Dulce Martinez, 34, of San Jose, emigrated from Mexico at age 11 and, after high school, attended community college on and off. She held a series of jobs — from a house cleaner to a school health clerk — and became the mother of two boys, now 10 and 12. But several years ago, her husband, a construction worker and house painter, suffered an on-the-job injury that makes it difficult for him to work steadily.
With the family’s income strained, she began looking around for a better-paid career. Martinez’s father and other relatives are ironworkers, but she never before thought of following in their footsteps. She then saw a Facebook page from the Silicon Valley-based social justice and training organization Working Partnerships USA, recruiting women into construction and technical jobs. She entered a pre-apprenticeship readiness program and used the ERICA funds for several months to pay a relative to watch her boys since her husband was not always available or well enough.
Then in July, she landed her current apprenticeship as an instrumentation and controls technician at the Santa Clara Water District. She is learning to install and fix the water system’s many meters and controls for pressure, chlorine and other factors. She is earning about $85,000 a year, compared with $35,000 at her old school job, and will be getting raises as the four-year apprenticeship proceeds.
Another attraction is that work is less physically taxing than the electrical or plumbing jobs she first considered. “It was something I couldn’t pass up. Physically, I’m going to be OK, and monetarily it’s going to be good for me and my family,” she said.
Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.
Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource
The record 205 school districts that passed construction bonds in November will spend 2025 vying for matching money from a $10 billion state bond that will meet only a small portion of the demand for financial help.
Novices at navigating state agencies, especially small districts, may find the process of claiming a share of state funding will be lengthy, complex and potentially overwhelming, said Julie Boesch, administrator for small school district support for the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. Boesch singlehandedly shepherded a renovation project through the funding process as superintendent and principal of Maple Elementary, a one-school district in Kern County.
“Putting out requests for qualifications and for proposals to hire consultants, architects, construction management and then to determine what kind of funding you can get — there are just so many things that have to happen,” she said. “There were times when I, as superintendent, was spending 90% of my time just on facilities.”
The success of Proposition 2, the construction bond for schools and community colleges, with 59% of support, was a vote of renewed confidence in public schools and a rebound from March 2020, when voters defeated a $15 billion bond amid anxiety over the Covid pandemic.
“They understood the need for this,” said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative advocate with the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), an organization of school districts and construction and architectural firms that led the effort to pass the proposition. “The funding opportunities will go a long way to ensure that projects are robust and that we’re able to make the repairs and the upgrades that we need.”
New money, old projects
Proposition 2’s passage will inject a welcome $10 billion on top of the $45 billion in bonds approved for school and community college districts. However, $3.7 billion — less than half of the $8.5 billion allotted to TK-12 districts under Proposition 2 — may be available for local projects approved in November.
That’s because as much as $4.8 billion in unfunded projects with preliminary approval from the last state bond will get priority. This extensive backlog dates back to Proposition 51, which voters passed in 2016. Funding from that bond ran dry several years ago, but under state law, districts could apply through Oct. 31, a week before the vote on Proppsition 2. They could reasonably assume that state funding would eventually become available from the next bond.
“Because there is so much more demand than there is funding, it’s safe to say that there’s always a long pipeline of projects awaiting allocations,” said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley, which researches school facilities.
Districts submitted plans with preliminary approval for more than 1,000 unfunded projects. These include projects valued at $1.46 billion for new construction and $3.42 billion for modernization. The latter category includes renovations, system upgrades, repairs, and replacement of portable classrooms more than 20 years old and permanent buildings over 25 years old.
One line ends, another forms
After Proposition 2 money runs out, the remaining projects will form a new line of unfunded projects awaiting state money whenever voters pass the next state bond.
“It is a fair question whether voters understood the degree of the funding backlog and the fact that so much of the Proposition 2 funding would already be spoken for by the time they were voting on their own local bonds in November,” Hinkley said. “What this all really emphasizes is that we are constantly playing catch-up with facilities funding, not coming anywhere close to meeting the actual needs of districts.”
It’s unlikely that all the pending projects will successfully run the gauntlet of state agencies for final approval, although it’s not possible to know how many now.
What follows is a primer on steps districts must take to be eligible for matching money under Proposition 2.
How will Proposition 2 money be divided?
Under the ballot language that the Legislature passed, Proposition 2 will be apportioned into several categories. It’s too soon to know how funding the previous bond’s unfunded projects will affect Proposition 2 categories.
$1.5 billion for community colleges. The Legislature and the governor will select specific projects based on recommendations of the community colleges.
$8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
$4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
$3.3 billion for new construction
$600 million for career and technical education facilities
$600 million for facilities for charter schools
$115 million to remove lead from school drinking water
When can districts apply?
Over the next eight months, the Office of Public School Construction will revise rules to differentiate Proposition 2 from previous state construction bonds. Changes include requiring districts to submit a five-year master plan with an inventory of classrooms, square footage and auxiliary facilities at each school.
Proposition 2 also will set aside 10% of modernization and new construction money for districts with fewer than 2,500 students. But that provision notwithstanding, what hasn’t changed is a first-come, first-served distribution system that can favor property-wealthy districts and large districts, such as Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) which can afford to employ permanent facilities staff to push their projects to the front of the line.
Kalleen of CASH and others familiar with state facilities grants urge districts to start submitting applications for priority projects now and not wait for more state guidance, in order to avoid getting left behind and ending up on the next waiting list.
“Districts are already planning and looking at their projects and submitting without yet knowing what the regulations will look like because there’s so much pent-up demand for state support for facilities funding,” Kalleen said. “Projects are funded based on the date that they’re received by the Office of Public School Construction. So as long as you meet those eligibility criteria, they’re funded in the order that they’re received.”
Districts won’t have to finish their master plans to initially apply for state funding, although they will have to complete them before receiving state money. They’ll have an opportunity to amend their proposals after the state revises regulations this summer.
Districts that have already completed a master plan with a needs assessment and established priorities “will be ahead of the game,” said Karla DeLeon, senior director-education for Dahlin Architecture, with three offices in California.
A small shift toward needs-based funding
Instead of submitting one application for all of their construction work, districts must apply for each project. The state’s share — at least 50% of the cost for new construction and 60% for a modernization project — will be funded uniformly on a per-student basis.
For an elementary school, for example, the per-student funding for 2024 was $15,770, meaning that building a classroom for 25 students would be $394,250 of base funding. (The per-student amount differs depending on whether a student is in elementary, middle or high school.) The per-student dollar amount is the minimum districts will qualify for, as there could be additional funding through supplemental grants if the project includes certain features.
But for the first time, the state will slightly increase funding for high-poverty, low-property-wealth districts. Huge differences in districts’ taxable property values create disparities in how much they can charge property owners for repairing and building school facilities. To narrow the gap, the state will provide up to 5 percentage points more matching money for qualifying projects based on the proportion of students who are low-income, foster youth, and English learners and, to a lesser extent, on a district’s property wealth per student.
A district could receive a 65% state match for renovations, reducing its contribution to 35%; the maximum contributions for new construction would be 55% state and 45% district.
“The total funding for the project would, in the eyes of the state, remain the same; it’s just more would be on the state’s dime, less on the school district’s dime,” Kalleen said.
Advocates for changing the system say the bonus funding won’t make enough difference to help many districts fully repair or replace subpar and antiquated buildings. The new system “does not meaningfully address the serious equity concerns that we and others have raised about the distribution of state funds,” wrote the Center for Cities + Schools, an institute at UC Berkeley, in an analysis.
How soon will local bond and Proposition 2 money be available?
When the state and local money becomes available depends. Bonds are loans that are usually paid back over 25 to 30 years. Working with their financial teams, districts will time their borrowing to align with their construction schedule and minimize property tax increases.
The increases cannot exceed a statewide bonding limit of charging property owners more than $40 per $100,000 of assessed property value for school facilities. For many small, low-wealth districts, this is a major obstacle to funding school improvements. For property-wealthy districts, it’s not an issue.
State funding to districts will be disbursed in batches over the next several years. The Legislative Analyst’s Office projects that paying for Proposition 2’s interest and principal will cost the state’s general fund about $500 million per year over 35 years.
What else is new under Proposition 2?
Proposition 2 includes other new features affecting TK-12 districts:
Along with reserving 10% of new construction and modernization funding for districts with fewer than 2,500 students, small districts can receive 5% of a project’s funding to hire architects, engineers and project managers. This should help them speed up the application process.
The state has a financial hardship provision funding the full cost of a project for a district that lacks the property tax base to pay for it. Proposition 2 triples the maximum tax base qualifying from $5 million to $15 million in assessed value.
Proposition 2 does not set aside funding for classrooms specifically equipped for transitional kindergarten (TK), as advocates had hoped, but it does permit districts to seek supplemental funding for TK in a school project. Districts can also seek supplemental money to pay for updating or constructing “essential facilities,” including kitchens, cafeterias, and undersized gyms, and installing energy conservation and efficiency measures like solar panels, outdoor shade areas and more efficient heating and air conditioning units.
What will the application process be like?
Districts face a multiagency and multiyear process with hoops to jump through and deadlines to meet before they can receive state funding. All must submit project plans to at least two state agencies before their plans can go to the Office of Public School Construction for a review for funding.
The Division of the State Architect, a group of architects and engineers, will ensure compliance with building codes, structural requirements and safety standards.
The Department of Education ensures “educational adequacy” — whether the facility complies with the state’s education code, meets classroom space requirements by subject and grade as well as how its design handles the needs of special education students, English learners, intervention services and accommodates community events, parking and outdoor activities. Depending on the site location, approval may be needed from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control or review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
DeLeon of Dahlin Architecture recommends turning to experts to guide the process. “You will want a solid team of support to manage all of the balls in the air within the time limits.”
Boesch said her most important advice to districts is to seek pre-approval meetings with state agencies. “Most districts avoid these, because they assume ‘they’ll just tell us to do something different, and it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,’” she said. “Truly, it’s not. It’s easier to ask permission and move forward instead of having to go back and undo something that may have been done incorrectly.”
Kalleen said districts can expect the process to take six months to a year for approval from the Office of Public School Construction, depending on the size of the project, and an additional two years or longer to receive funding from the State Allocations Board.
Boesch agreed. “At an absolute minimum, in a perfect world, it really would be two years,” she said, to receive funding, but more likely three or four.
“The backlog is so large that state funds often get to districts after projects have already been completed,” Hinkley said. “Districts that do not have sufficient local funds to cover a project’s costs while waiting for the state backlog are at an enormous disadvantage.”
