LOS ANGELES — The battle for a new state school facilities bond in California will continue despite Gov. Jerry Brown's lack of support, said the sponsor of a school bond measure that fell short this year in the Legislature.
"We've come to the end of the road," Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, a sponsor of the measure, said in a statement.
In its most recent incarnation, Assembly Bill 2235 would have asked voters to authorize $4.3 billion in state general obligation bonds for education projects, mostly in K-12 schools.
Brown made it clear that he does not want a school bond on the same ballot as the water bond and his Rainy Day Fund proposition this November, Buchanan, D-Alamo, said in the statement Tuesday.
"We have no commitment of his support for a future bond," she added in an emailed response Thursday.
Brown's Department of Finance stressed that the governor questions what role, if any, the state should play in funding facilities, Buchanan said.
"We know that the responsibility for educating our children is not written in local city or county ordinances, it is written in our state Constitution," she said.
The ultimate decision on the state's responsibility for school facilities may be decided in the courts, not the Legislature, Buchanan said.
The dialogue is not over, said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the Department of Finance.
"We want to work with the Legislature and all interested parties to make changes to the state's existing K-12 school facilities program that addresses the significant concerns that the Administration has expressed for the past two years," he said Thursday. "Our door remains open."
The administration has questioned the appropriate role for the state in financing school infrastructure and also questioned the effectiveness of the existing system for disbursing state bond funds to school districts.
That system no longer has any state bond money to dole out, as proceeds from the previous school bond measure in 2006 have been given out.
Buchanan
"I have seen firsthand the difference the current School Facilities Program has made for our schools and our children," she said.
Since its inception 16 years ago, Buchanan said, the state has authorized $35 billion in bonds that have been matched by over $75 billion in local school bonds and developer fees. That funding has built over 55,000 new classrooms and modernized over 136,000, she said.
"Every school district in my Assembly district has benefited," she said.
Buchanan said she plans to continue to work hard to support schools and asked that the bill's supporters do the same.
