 |
|
|
|
|
CUSD puts $80 million bond on ballot
Special election to decide fate on funding Þfth middle school
By KEVIN FAYLE
The Cupertino Union School District Board of Education voted to put an $80 million bond to the voters at a special meeting. The bond will cover facilities expenses exclusively, including renovations and the conversion of an elementary school into a fifth middle school. No money from the bond will be used for salaries or administration costs.
The board had executed an uncertain parliamentary slalom at its Feb. 27 meeting, as it first passed, then retracted, a motion putting a $79 million bond to the voters. After discussing the matter for an hour, then engaging in procedural wrangling over the vote, the board ultimately decided to table the matter until the special meeting on March 6.
The matter was discussed briefly at the March 6 meeting, as board members questioned the bonds details. The board then voted unanimously to present the $80 million bond request to voters during a June 5 special election. The bond will need the approval of two-thirds of voters to go into effect, not the 55 percent allowed by Proposition 39. That proposition reduces the percentages of votes required to pass a school bond measure from 66.7 percent to 55 percent.
The first opportunity the school district would have to submit a bond under the rules of Proposition 39 would be during the November elections. However, this would delay the opening of a fifth middle school by another year, by pushing back the start of construction by a few months. The work would finish in the middle of the school session.
Even though the district will ask for a two-thirds majority for the bond, they have pledged to implement an independent audit as detailed in Proposition 39.
The bond will most likely result in a $22.25 per $100,000 deduction, but it could range up to $29.75 per $100,000.
According to district Superintendent William Bragg, the need for the bond arose out of the class-size reduction law passed by the California State Legislature in 1996. Voters had approved a school bond in 1995, but the new law meant that the district would have to renovate existing facilities and establish new schools to comply with the regulations.
"This bond will really get us to where we would have been without class-size reduction," Bragg says.
The district currently receives some of the lowest levels of funding in the state, and the least amount of funding in Santa Clara County.
|
|
|
|
Cupertino, California Since 1947
