LBUSD To Ask Voters For Bond

By Carla M. Collado

Staff Writer

After viewing dozens of pictures of rusting pipes and heaters, peeling paint, rotting wood, cracked pavement and water-damaged portables at various Long Beach Unified School District schools, the LBUSD Board of Education voted Monday to place a $1.2 billion construction bond measure on the Nov. 4 election ballot. The vote was 4-0, with board member Michael Ellis absent.

“We all know that our buildings are in bad shape and that we need a lot of help quickly,” board member Felton Williams said.

The measure will need 55% voter approval and would impose a property owner tax of no more than $5 a month per $100,000 of assessed valuation.

(This means Long Beach voters will be voting on two bond measures that would add to property taxes. The City Council voted Tuesday to put a $571 million bond to repair the city’s infrastructure on the ballot, which would cost property owners $10 per month per parcel.)

The LBUSD bond measure also would make the school district eligible for about $286 million in matching state funds, according to Carri Matsumoto, executive director of LBUSD facilities development and planning. That money is available for modernization and construction, through an overcrowding relief grant and for critically overcrowded schools, she explained.

The bond measure is the district’s response to a revised Facility Master Plan — approved by the school board in January 2008 — that identified school district buildings that need repairs and renovations, as well as new schools that should be built over the next 25 years or so. The FMP process lasted 11 months and involved more than 200 planning committee meetings and numerous community dialogues and surveys, LBUSD Spokesman Chris Eftychiou explained.

After assessing roughly 8.5 million square feet of building space, the FMP showed that 38% of LBUSD schools need major renovations and 36% of schools need moderate renovations, among other findings. Eftychiou added that 80% of the district’s permanent buildings were built before 1970.

The bond measure would allow the district to: repair, renovate and build schools; retrofit schools for earthquake safety and handicap accessibility; upgrade computer labs, science labs, physical education facilities, auditoriums, libraries and music rooms; upgrade bathrooms and repair leaking roofs; and retrofit schools to be able to keep pace with ever-changing technologies, among other things.

Major projects involve building three new elementary schools, two new middle schools and three to six new high schools, Eftychiou said. These new high schools would be small, thematic schools (focusing on business, trade and technology, for instance) that would help alleviate enrollment pressure at the existing high schools, some of which have more than 4,000 students each, he explained.

The district also hopes to use the funding to reduce the number of portable classrooms. More than 28,000 students currently attend class in portables, many of which are outdated and deteriorating, according to Eftychiou.

The $1.2 billion is what the school district needs to fund the first phase of the FMP projects, or the next 10 to 12 years, said Kim Stallings, LBUSD chief business and financial officer. Over the next 25 years, however, the district estimates it will need a total of roughly $6.5 billion (including state matching funds and factoring in inflation costs) to complete all projects, Stallings added.

On Monday, school board member David Barton asked district staff about bond oversight.

“There’s no doubt that we need it,” Barton said of the bond money. “But my concern is following the money.”

If passed, all bond expenditures would be monitored by an independent citizens’ oversight committee, would be subject to annual independent audits and would not be allowed to be spent on LBUSD administrator salaries and other district operating expenses. The oversight committee would consist of representatives from a taxpayers association, the teachers union, a senior citizens organization, parents and others, Stallings said.

The last LBUSD construction bond measure that voters approved was for $295 million in 1999, of which $250 million have been used, according to Matsumoto.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the school board unanimously elected Jon Meyer as the new board president (replacing Williams) and Mary Stanton as the new board vice president (replacing Meyer).

For more information on the FMP, visit www.LBUSDfacilities.com.

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