The School Facilities Program has little new money to hand out – especially for the more costly new construction and modernization projects – but the board has been reluctant to declare it depleted. To do so would trigger a provision in state law that places the burden of school construction costs fully on the backs of housing developers by allowing districts who meet the criteria to charge them 100 percent of building costs.
Ninety percent of students completing Capistrano Unified School District’s dental assistant career education program are hired for jobs right out of high school. . . And the auto repair graduates can go straight to work making a livable wage or continue their education for another year or two at community college and graduate to jobs earning $80,000 to $90,000 a year.
The minimum funding guarantee for K-12 schools and community colleges is expected to surge to $77.5 billion by the 2019-20 school year – marking a five-year cycle of increases that will total more than $14 billion, according to a forecast released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst.
“There’s a sense that Prop. 30 solved all school budget woes when, in fact, it only stopped the bleeding,” said Alvarez. “Even if Prop. 30 was extended, that’s not going to give us more money – that’s going to keep us where we are now, and we are appreciative of that but we need to go further.”
Despite signals that his administration was ready to undertake a sweeping change for how new schools are paid for and older ones updated, Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled Friday a far less substantial facilities program, pushing the larger policy debate off for another time.