California Proposition 2 Will Not Bolster Education. Prop 2 Does Not Even Require The Funds To Be Spent On Schools. Sacramento will spend the $10 billion on whatever it wants.  

Prop. 2 will Not bolster education. Prop 2 does not even require the funds to be spent on schools. Sacramento will spend the $10 billion on whatever it wants. Proposition 2 would put California $10 billion deeper into debt without reforming its broken system of funding school facilities.

Consider that proponents of Proposition 2 say the state must borrow billions of dollars for “urgent repairs to leaky roofs” and “deteriorating gas, electrical, and sewer lines.” The money is needed, they say, to remove “hazardous mold, asbestos, and lead paint from our schools.”

Since 1998, California voters have approved $54 billion in bonds for K-12 facilities. Most recently, Proposition 51 in 2016 provided for $9 billion, and some of those funds have not yet been spent.

If there is still asbestos and lead in our schools, and if basic safety concerns have not been prioritized, where is the accountability for those failures? Are taxpayers supposed to continue to approve endless borrowing while the most critical needs of students are ignored? Where is all the money going?

Unfortunately, Proposition 2 does little or nothing to ensure that high priorities such as student safety are really funded this time…we’ll just go deeper into debt and then hear the same story about leaky roofs and asbestos next time.

Compensation Costs Still Going Up Because Of Automatic Salary Increases And Soaring Pension Costs.

With enrollment down in most parts of California but with compensation costs still going up because of automatic salary increases and soaring pension costs, school districts should sweat the spending of every last dollar.

Instead, officials’ first reaction to budget pressure has often been to figure out how to use costly long-term borrowing to cover short-term obligations. Millions of electronic devices that work on average for less than two years will be paid off by school bonds not maturing until the 2040s and 2050s.

Locally, funds from a 2008 San Diego Unified bond were immediately used for routine maintenance.

Millions of electronic devices that work on average for less than two years will be paid off by school bonds

No family would use a 35-year payback plan to buy an iPad or fix the backyard fence. But in the world of school finance, such decisions are often seen as shrewd, not foolhardy.

It is this backdrop that makes a “no” vote on Proposition 2 — which would authorize the state to borrow $8.5 billion for K-12 schools and $1.5 billion for community colleges for “construction and modernization” — among the easiest decisions on the ballot.

Will Prop. 2 Be Used By Many School Boards Across The State To Ease Immediate Fiscal Headaches, Not For Long-Term Improvements?

If approved, history shows it will be used by many school boards across the state to ease immediate fiscal headaches, not for long-term improvements. State lawmakers knew this when they placed the measure on the ballot.

According to a recent Daily Bulletin article, Paula Ford, assistant superintendent of business services for Jurupa Unified School District in Riverside County, said 85% of her district’s budget is committed to staffing and enrollment is declining.

“We don’t necessarily have a specific list.” “What if something changes?”

Riverside activist Jason Hunter, who serves on the California Association of Bond Oversight Committees, doesn’t dispute the need for improvements. But he said he generally opposes school bonds because they typically do not specify project details.

“Tell me the schools and tell me what kind of work is going to be going on,” Hunter said. “What are you going to build there? Are you going to be building a football field? Or are you going to be building a science lab?”

Ford, of Jurupa Unified, said, “We don’t necessarily have a specific list.” She said such lists lock schools into spending bond money a certain way. “What if something changes?” Ford asked. “What if we have to repurpose a school?”

Hunter also said that, while most agencies appoint citizen committees to oversee bonds, too often they aren’t independent bodies with the latitude to critically evaluate how money is spent.  Jurupa Unified, with an enrollment of 17,600, is an example of a declining-enrollment district with needs.

If there is still asbestos and lead in our schools, and if basic safety concerns have not been prioritized, where is the accountability for those failures?

Proposition 2 would put California $10 billion deeper into debt without reforming its broken system of funding school facilities.

Consider that proponents of Proposition 2 say the state must borrow billions of dollars for “urgent repairs to leaky roofs” and “deteriorating gas, electrical, and sewer lines.” The money is needed, they say, to remove “hazardous mold, asbestos, and lead paint from our schools.”

Since 1998, California voters have approved $54 billion in bonds for K-12 facilities. Most recently, Proposition 51 in 2016 provided for $9 billion, and some of those funds have not yet been spent.

If there is still asbestos and lead in our schools, and if basic safety concerns have not been prioritized, where is the accountability for those failures? Are taxpayers supposed to continue to approve endless borrowing while the most critical needs of students are ignored? Where is all the money going?

Debt is not the only way to build or upgrade schools. In the 2022-23 budget, the legislature appropriated more than $4 billion for new construction and modernization of school facilities.

Not long ago, California had a $100 billion budget surplus. Everything in Proposition 2 could have been paid for without incurring 35 years of interest charges, if the legislature had chosen to prioritize the safety and well-being of students.

While Proposition 2 commits billions of dollars from future state budgets for school facilities, enrollment is declining in California. According to the Department of Finance, K-12 enrollment was 6.2 million in 2016, down to 5.85 million in 2022-23 and projected to be 5.19 million by 2032. Community colleges, which would receive $1.5 billion from Proposition 2 bonds, also have seen enrollment drop.

California Does Not Accurately Track And Audit Its Spending.

Carl DeMaio, chairman of the tax-fighting group Reform California, points out that the state does not accurately track and audit its spending.

In fact, California authorized over $30 billion in spending to address homelessness — including over $6 billion in funding passed by Prop 1 in the March 2024 Primary Election — and the state has had to admit it doesn’t know how that money has been spent. Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom even vetoed a bill that would have required him to better monitor the distribution of funds.

“Zero accountability for spending — and no results!” said DeMaio. “If the state continues to fail to manage its budget and deliver on what they promise, then why should we authorize more spending?”

DeMaio also says that Prop 2 is purposefully written to lie to and mislead voters.

“The funding in Prop 2 will not go toward education improvements — it benefits the pockets of bureaucrats and greedy special interests,” explained DeMaio.

A majority of Prop 2’s funding goes toward or is able to be diverted toward bureaucratic functions such as salaries, grants, contracts, and more to “investigate,” “assess,” and hold “meetings” about the state of facilities.

80% Goes Toward Administrative Salaries Or Completely Unrelated Projects Says Independent Analysis Of Revenue Collected By The State Gas Tax.

DeMaio warns it is quite likely that not a single dollar of the $10 billion in Prop 2 would actually go toward development and making school facility improvements.

And this happens routinely — an independent analysis by former State Senator John Moorlach found that over 80% of revenue collected by the state gas tax goes toward administrative salaries or is diverted to completely unrelated projects rather than fixing roads.

“And if the state is barely tracking its spending, then we may never know if they divert Prop 2’s funds to their own pockets!” explained DeMaio.

“At the end of the day, Prop 2 is a scam that is written to sound like it will help schools — but there is no guarantee that even one penny will help schools and there is zero accountability to make sure that happens — vote NO on Prop 2 and demand better,” concluded DeMaio.

No Language That Specifically Directs The Bond Funds To “Remove or Replace Asbestos, Mold, Lead Paint and Lead Pipes.”

The executive director of the California Teachers Association said this spending is needed “remove or replace asbestos, mold, lead paint and lead pipes” from school buildings.

You might expect that Proposition 2 would contain language that specifically directs the bond funds to these high-priority needs.

You’d be wrong.

Instead, Proposition 2 awards “points” to “a school district project that includes the use of a project labor agreement.”

A project labor agreement is a “prehire” collective bargaining agreement for a construction project…opponents say PLAs, particularly in the public sector, “discourage competition by favoring union companies” and “result in higher costs due to the restricted number of bidders, higher union wages, and the imposition of union work rules…”

…And by limiting subcontractors on a project to those who have signed onto a project labor agreement, countless small businesses in the construction sector are excluded from the opportunity to bid for that work and provide jobs to those non-union workers.

For taxpayers, it typically means government projects cost more, and the public gets less than promised.

Since 1998, California voters have approved $54 billion in bonds for K-12 school buildings. Yet advocates for Proposition 2, the $10 billion bond for school buildings, are still claiming they need the money to remove asbestos and lead from the walls and pipes.

If there’s still asbestos and lead in the walls and pipes of California’s schools after all those billions of dollars, plus interest, where is the accountability for the decisions and priorities that directed all that spending? Who has been fired for it? Nobody. Clearly the safety of children in schools is not the highest priority of our government officials. It’s not as if they don’t know about the problems. Every two years like clockwork, deteriorating schools in low-income areas are exploited as props in TV commercials and campaign mailers demanding voter approval of more borrowing.

The argument can be made that the one true priority of the California Department of Education and many local school boards is to placate or reward political allies, specifically unions and their leaders…

Vote no on 2. Stop your tax dollars from supporting union leaders in the style to which they’re accustomed.

Prop 2. Ignores Declining Enrollment In Schools And Community Collages.

It’s reckless to borrow billions more to pay for more school buildings when district enrollment is declining. According to the state Department of Finance, “California experienced the 6th consecutive decrease in total Public K–12 Enrollment in the 2022–23 school year,” and over the next ten years, if current trends hold, a further decline of 661,500 by 2032–33.

Prop. 2 borrows $1.5 billion for California Community College facilities, but enrollment in the state’s community colleges has declined since 2019. The Public Policy Institute of California projects that community college enrollment “will not recover to pre-pandemic levels.”

While the promises made by proponents cannot be guaranteed, Prop. 2 does guarantee higher taxes for overburdened Californians.

Tell politicians to prioritize education funding over free healthcare for illegal immigrants in our state budget.

Proposition 2 is yet another attempt to circumvent California’s financial problems by asking taxpayers to approve a $10 billion bond for education financing that should have been included in this year’s $288 billion budget package,

A budget is a reflection of priorities, and our State Legislature chose to prioritize over $5 billion for universal illegal immigrant healthcare rather than providing funds to support and repair our school infrastructure. Billions in new bond debt is not the answer.

Prop. 2 Is the Latest in a Long List of Broken Promises

In 2012, California voters approved Proposition 30’s “temporary” increases to income and sales taxes. Then, Proposition 55 in 2016 extended many of those “temporary” taxes to 2028. Both times, teachers’ unions promised billions in funding for our schools.

Money pits in the vast education bureaucracy will suck up most Prop. 2 funds without one cent going toward direct instruction in school classrooms. Instead, this money will be spent on wasteful construction projects benefiting special interests.

California’s schools are consistently ranked near the lowest in the country. Rather than throwing nearly $20 billion into school construction projects, our state needs a well thought out, long-term solution to achieve a high standard of excellence in reading, writing, and math. Prop. 2 does nothing to improve classroom instruction or help our children succeed.

Voters rejected Proposition 13, a $15 billion school bond, in 2020 for exactly these reasons.

So, because Prop. 2 does not even require the funds to be spent on schools, we urge you to “Vote No on Prop. 2.”