Voters OK $2.2 billion in local school bonds
Published: July 1, 2006
School districts fared better than other local agencies in their bids for voter approval of bond measures, parcel taxes and other funding proposals on the June 6 ballot. Apparent record-low turnout may have factored into the results, with final unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office showing less than a third of registered voters casting ballots.
In all, 32 local school bonds were approved for more than $2.2 billion in new investment. Of those, 31 required a 55 percent vote in favor and one, a $15 million bond for Ross School District in Marin County, required approval of two-thirds of the voters.
The only other school bond measure that required a two-thirds majority was Oak Park Unified School District’s $89 million proposal in Ventura County; it received more than 58 percent of the vote but still fell short of the two-thirds majority that it needed. The 50 percent success rate for those two bond measures exceeds the 37.5 percent rate posted by other local agencies that sought two-thirds voter approval margins for nearly 100 city, county and special district revenue measures, according to the League of California Cities.
Education facility bonds are the only projects that can qualify for a smaller, 55 percent majority threshold under Proposition 39, a constitutional amendment the state’s voters approved in 2000, and projects undertaken with those bond funds must meet stringent oversight restrictions. Palo Alto Democrat Joe Simitian has also tried to reduce the parcel fee requirement for schools, county offices of education and community college districts to 55 percent. The measure attracted 43 votes in the 80-member state Assembly two years ago but still failed because, as a constitutional amendment, it needs a two-thirds approval from each house of the Legislature before it can be put to the voters for a simple majority. Simitian reintroduced the measure when he became a state senator last year, but its passage looks unlikely.
"While we continue to be very pleased at the success many communities are achieving with their local bond efforts—and some of the failures may have been due to the low turnout—these results continue to demonstrate why we need to reduce the super-majority threshold still required for parcel tax measures," said CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin.
Five of the six school parcel taxes on local ballots around the state would have passed if the 55 percent majority were in effect instead of the two-thirds hurdle. The sixth—and largest, at $254 annually for five years in Solano County’s Benicia Unified School District—still attracted more than 53 percent of the vote.
Related link: