With California’s school repair fund empty, voters approved a $10 billion bond to fund much-needed improvements at elementary and secondary schools and community colleges.

“This is great news for all students,” said Adam Clark, superintendent of Mt. Diablo Unified in Contra Costa County. “In our neighborhood, we have so many basic repair needs – electrical, plumbing, roofs, windows – and this takes the pressure off. This means we can get to work.

Proposition 2 will help address dry rot, mold, faulty electrical systems, gas leaks and other health and safety hazards affecting hundreds of aging campuses. At least 38% of K-12 students attend schools that do not meet minimum safety standards, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

“This is critical to the education of our students, in every community, across the state,” said Rebekah Kalleen, a legislative activist with the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, a nonprofit that advocates for financing of school facilities. “Students need to be in safe facilities. Learning outcomes depend on it.

Schools are especially desperate because the state’s latest school facilities bond, a $15 billion bond in 2020, failed. That left the state’s school repair fund depleted, with an ever-growing list of needs. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that it would cost more than $100 billion to repair every leaky roof and broken heater on California campuses.

Since California overhauled its school funding formula in the late 1980s, state and local bonds have been the only source of money for school repairs and upgrades. Proposition 2 gives $8.5 billion to K-12 schools and $1.5 billion to community colleges. A simple majority was required to pass.

Voters appear to favor Proposition 2

Californians have shown consistent support for Proposition 2, according to polls. A survey in October found that 52 percent of voters favored the proposition, with higher levels of support among Democrats and voters in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Inland Empire. That support has been fairly consistent since the Legislature approved putting the bond on the ballot in June.

Proposition 2 garnered bipartisan support, including the state Democratic and Republican parties, the California Teachers Association, the California Chamber of Commerce, as well as numerous education organizations.

Supporters are confident that Proposition 2 will not meet the same fate as the previous school facilities requirement. That bond, Proposition 13, was confusing to voters because it shared a name with the famous tax reform measure from the 1970s, Kalleen said. Other factors contributing to the defeat were the timing of the election, which was in March 2020, as pandemic shutdowns were beginning, and the high amount of the bond.

As of Oct. 24, backers of Prop. 2 had raised $12.3 million, with most of it coming from the California Teachers Association, the California Building Industry Association and Kalleen’s group.

The only formal opposition to Proposition 2 came from the Taxpayers Association Howard Jarvis and Assemblyman Bill Essayli, a Republican from Corona, who argued that taxpayers already provide significant support for schools and that the state should pay for school repairs from the existing general fund. budget. They also argued that sooner or later government bonds would result in higher taxes.

“Bonds are borrowed money that must be repaid, plus interest, even if it means cutting vital programs to do so,” Taxpayers Association Howard Jarvis wrote in his ballot argument. “Governor Newsom recently declared a fiscal emergency because California is spending more than it is absorbing. Children in school today will be drowning in new debt for decades if Proposition 2 passes.”

As of October 24, opponents had not reported any campaign donations to the secretary of state.

San Francisco-based nonprofit public interest law firm Public Advocates agrees with the need to fund school facilities but objected to how California would distribute the money. The state would distribute most of the money based on matching grants, meaning school districts that can raise more money through local bonds — typically larger, wealthier districts — can raise more Prop 2 funds.

Proposition 2 provides $1 billion for smaller, lower-income districts and includes a sliding scale that would give more money to smaller districts, but the scale is nowhere near broad enough, Public Advocates argued.

Public Advocates had threatened to sue if the measure passed, but late Tuesday, the firm’s managing attorney, John Affeldt, said no decision had yet been made.

“Voters seem to rightly recognize the desperate need for capital funding for our public schools, but I don’t think that constitutes an endorsement of the Legislature’s plan to distribute the funds,” Affeldt said Tuesday evening.

But even with the inequities, Proposition 2 is a lifeline for most school districts, especially those with limited abilities to raise local funds.

“Right now, our classrooms are so rusted that pieces of iron roof girders regularly fall off buildings,” said Eric Gross, superintendent of Pacific Elementary School in Davenport, near Santa Cruz. “If Proposition 2 passes, we can replace dilapidated classrooms and build new classrooms to accommodate our growing enrollment.”