FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Lawmakers skeptical of Brown’s facility funding plan

by Kimberly Beltran

(Calif.) Lawmakers on Wednesday expressed skepticism of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to reduce the state's role in building and maintaining schools by pushing the bulk of the financial burden onto local districts and their communities.

Members of a key legislative committee, many with backgrounds in education, said districts are already struggling to cover day-to-day operations and that withdrawing state support for school construction would likely leave them unable to meet what is already an overwhelming need for new or revitalized facilities.

“My concern is that [the governor’s] proposal leaves a lot of school districts out there. Essentially they’re on their own in providing future school facilities and modernization thereof,” said Long Beach Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, a former teacher who now chairs the Assembly’s education committee. “This proposal leaves me scratching my head a bit.”

Brown has repeatedly criticized the state’s current system for supporting school construction as overly complex and cumbersome.

His office convened a meeting of school officials last fall with the intent of proposing some sweeping changes to the School Facilities Program, which uses voter-approved bonds to provide matching funds to districts for a variety of facility needs – from new construction and modernization to seismic upgrades and energy efficient installations.

But funds in the program are nearly depleted and Brown has blocked recent efforts to place a new statewide bond measure before voters, arguing that the system contributes to the state’s wall of debt and saying there are other options to consider.

Among the alternatives offered by the governor’s administration are increasing the borrowing caps on schools based on community property assessments; charging home developers for a portion of the costs by establishing a single statewide fee; and providing districts with more flexibility in their use of currently-restricted maintenance money.

Brown’s Department of Finance also argues that under the new education finance system – the Local Control Funding Formula – school districts are free to prioritize what they spend their money on and could put some of this cash toward facilities.

Members of the education committee agreed that there are some changes that could be made to both streamline and equalize the existing system, but completely abandoning what has been a successful program, they say, is the wrong approach – and expecting schools to use LCFF funds for school construction is unrealistic.

With over 1,000 districts and more than 10,000 schools – many of which are 50 or more years old – maintenance and upkeep alone would require somewhere in the neighborhood of $7 billion if fully funded each year, according to facilities expert Jeffrey Vincent of Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools, who testified before the committee Wednesday.

“I don’t think we as a state have fully committed to the cost of ownership of these public buildings,” Vincent told committee members. “We have to spend money on our facilities. It’s not an option not to or we run enormous risks of health and safety.”

Two state legislators have introduced separate bills this session that would place statewide facilities bond measures on the 2016 ballot. A proposal last year sailed through the Assembly with broad bi-partisan support and likely would’ve passed the Senate if not for Brown’s opposition.

Members of his finance team said Wednesday that the governor is open to suggestions coming out of the Legislature unless they add to the $2.5 billion annual debt service the state already pays for prior facilities bond costs.

“There are a lot of folks that are just tapped out, we get that. This is the conundrum we’re facing,” said Brown spokesman Thomas Todd. “But Prop. 98 resources in the form of LCFF have to be considered ultimately in whatever level of state funding we decide is necessary.

“However, when it comes to [funding from the state’s General Fund],” he said, “there’s really not a lot of room there right now but we are absolutely willing to engage in a dialogue with all of you to explore options to fund something that would be sort of a pay-as-you-go program.”

Panel members countered that without a new revenue source, school districts are not in a position to use their own General Fund monies to pay for school construction.

“You’re dumping a lot on LCFF and yet you haven’t taken anything off the LCFF, said Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego. “The only thing we’ve done with the Local Control Funding Formula is taken what probably would’ve come anyway in terms of the same money and just took away the categoricals, put it all in one pot and said do the same stuff you’ve done before.”

Todd noted that the administration does not plan to introduce a policy proposal through legislation but rather is leaving it up to state law makers to come up with a plan based on his suggestions.

https://www.cabinetreport.com/facilities/lawmakers-skeptical-of-browns-facility-funding-plan