Schools seek help with new campuses, expansions, upgrades
In addition to a sales tax increase for unincorporated areas of Kern County, depending on the location, voters also may be asked to pitch in to help out local classrooms with an increase or two on their property tax assessment.
While the county is asking residents in unincorporated areas to consider a 1-cent sales tax increase to pay for its vital services — similar to the city of Bakersfield recent Measure N in 2016 — four different school districts also have measures on the ballot seeking support from voters to help with much-needed campus expansions, repairs or upgrades depending on the district.
And to be sure, this is not solely a Kern funding problem, or the fault of declining enrollments affecting revenue, a challenge many districts throughout the state are expected to face. (A school district’s enrollment and attendance figures tie directly into funding under the state’s mechanism known as the Local Control Funding Formula.)
In fact, Edison, Fruitvale, Kern High and Panama-Buena Vista Union all specifically mention growth as a reason they’re asking for voters to dig a little bit deeper into their pockets.
Statewide, California schools are expected to need about $100 billion over the next decade in order to pay for “maintenance, modernization and new construction costs at the state and local levels,” according to a Public Policy Institute of California report.
Here are four districts that are asking for voters’ support next week.
MEASURE E
The Kern High School District’s request affects the most voters of any of the measures by virtue of the district’s expansive jurisdiction. Its nearly 42,000 students are spread across metro Bakersfield, Arvin, Shafter and the Kern River Valley, and its total enrollment numbers have already surpassed its projected population for 2026, which was made in 2016 when the last bond, Measure K, was put to voters.
The new measure would levy an average
$19 per $100,000 of assessed value on a property, which means if your home has been assessed to close to the approximate median value of the most recent sales price, which is about $365,000, you’d pay around $70 more per year in property taxes if at least 55 percent of voters approve — the minimum threshold for a school general obligation bond.
According to the ballot, the measure requests help to “update local schools with funds that cannot be taken by the state, shall Kern High School District’s measure to expand vocational training centers; retrofit/construct schools and classrooms including math, science and engineering labs; and improve classroom security, technology and internet access be adopted … .”
The district has several goals with the $160 million it hopes to raise with the measure — which is supported by the Kern County Taxpayers Association — according to KHSD board member Jan Graves, a former teacher at Foothill High who represents District 4, which includes Bakersfield, Centennial, Liberty and Stockdale high schools.
“It’s needed because our schools are in need of repair. And we don’t have the funds to repair all the schools that are getting old and we need to have the support of the community,” Graves said Friday.
The money from the 2016 bond has been accounted for, she added, and some of the projects that it paid for, such as the state-of-the-art Career Technical Education Center, are already in need of expansion due to growing demand.
The CTEC, for example, has a waitlist of about 1,500 students for its programming, and the district is now looking to add evening classes to try to accommodate interest.
“So the kids go to school all day and then they go to the tech program at night — well, whew, that’s a lot,” she said.
There are also infrastructure needs, such as additional cabling and new air conditioners, to name some examples that the bond will help with, she added. There’s also a new comprehensive school site being discussed, but that location has yet to be decided.
As a former teacher, she said she knows how important it is to support local classrooms, and as someone who lives within both PBVUSD and Kern High boundaries, she plans to support both measures.
MEASURE I
The county’s second-largest elementary school district has a little over 18,000 transitional kindergarten to eighth-grade students, and it’s asking for voters to pitch in $30 per $100,000 in assessed value — the same as the other three non-high school districts with bond measures — in order to raise about $6 million a year. The tax bill increase would work out to about $110 per year if a homeowner’s property is valued at near the current Kern median sales price of approximately $365,000, according to the September data from Affiliated Appraisers.
“Every day, over 19,000 children depend on Panama-Buena Vista Union School District for high quality education to prepare for high school, college, jobs for the future and successful lives,” according to a statement from PBVUSD Superintendent Katie Russell. “Our TK-8 schools are strong, and as more families move in and student enrollment increases, we must be prepared to build new classrooms and schools, while also completing needed repairs and upgrades at our existing schools. Measure
I, if approved by voters, will help address the next set of most critical PBVUSD facilities, security and technology needs so we can continue to be the model of excellence in education.”
The top three priorities identified on the district’s website for the bond measure are: to repair deteriorating roofs, plumbing, sewer and electrical systems; to upgrade schools for innovative instruction in science, technology, engineering, arts, math (STEAM) and future-focused career pathways; and to construct new classrooms and school facilities to relieve overcrowding.
The PBVUSD measure would authorize the sale of up to $99 million in bonds, which would have an estimated total debt service, including principal and interest, of approximately $120 million, according to the tax information statement. If approved, the rate is expected to continue until the fiscal year 2041-2042.
“Measure I provides a plan to address the next set of most critical PBVUSD facilities and technology needs,” according to the district’s bond information page at bit.ly/PBVUSDmeasure. “No other funding is currently available to properly upgrade these facilities.”
MEASURE H
The Fruitvale School District has just over 3,000 students, according to the most recent figures available from the state’s Schools Dashboard. The district is located between Rosedale Union on its western border and Bakersfield City on its eastern border.
Since its last new school was built more than 25 years ago, there’s been growth, as well as wear and tear, and accordingly, the district could use a little help from voters to spruce things up and keep them “top notch,” according to board member Richard Traynor.
“After a while, things just naturally degrade a little bit. And our parents are used to the schools looking top notch and the grounds looking good,” he said, noting the bond wouldn’t be for landscaping, but more for fixing roof tiles, plumbing issues and maybe a new coat of paint here and there.
“We want everything to look good and to function better,” he said, adding another important part of the request was to pay for technology infrastructure, which is costly and something other districts are looking to upgrade as well.
The measure, which has the support of the Kern County Taxpayers Association, also would be used to help the district restructure its existing debt from the previous bond measure, which voters approved in 2016. The district wasn’t able to complete all of the projects it sought to with its previous measure, Traynor said, due to rising construction costs since its passage.
MEASURE G
The Edison School District has about 1,200 students. With its bond, the district hopes to raise about $3.4 million. Edison is located directly south of the Bakersfield City School District and east of the Fairfax School District.
The funds would be used “to modernize and upgrade outdated district facilities, construct new district facilities, including joint-use fields, a community services center for district and community use, a new school site and qualify for state funding,” according to the ballot request.
In a previous interview, Edison Superintendent Erica Andrews noted the No. 1 reason the district is asking for voters’ support is growing enrollment.
However, if voters approved the funds, they would also have the added community benefit of building joint-use facilities, which would benefit everyone, not only families with children in the district.
Andrews also previously expressed her gratitude for voters’ support of the district, noting the last time Edison sought funding help was a bond measure in 2004, which passed with an 80 percent approval.