by Mark McDermott
The Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Education is exploring the possibility of placing a $200 million school bond on the November ballot.
The school board, at its April 18 meeting, heard reports both from its financial and election consultants. Each tentatively recommended placing a school bond on the November ballot, taking advantage of the fact that bond measure passed two decades ago will be fully repaid by next year, meaning a new $200 million bond would not represent an increase in taxes for local property owners and would allow the district to tackle the $153 million in facility needs left unmet by 2016’s school bonds.
Those needs, adjusted for inflation, along with a new facilities needs assessment currently underway, would likely exceed $200 million, consultant Annette Yee told the board.
“We suspect you will need more than that,” said Yee, who is part of the firm Montague DeRose that has long advised MBUSD on financial matters. “But we thought that would be a good number to start with, a good round number.”
A $200 million bond would keep the tax rate just below $88 per $100,000 in assessed value, Yee said, which is what the previous bond’s debt service has been at for the past few years, dropping from a high of $94 in 2018. General obligation bonds that were issued after bond measures were approved by voters in 1995 and 2000 come to maturity this year, next year, and in 2026. School bond elections can only take place during even numbered years, hence 2024 will be MBUSD’s only opportunity to seek voter approval at a time that a bond measure would not represent a tax increase.
Board trustee Bruce Greenberg said he understood this positive aspect of the timing for a potential school bond on the November ballot, but he questioned whether the timing was ideal given that voters just approved two ballot measures in the March 5 election, including the Measure MB parcel tax benefitting MBUSD.
“I’m just looking at kind of the negative timing, which is that the city just recently had the stormwater drain tax impact and then obviously Measure MB,” Greenberg said. “You know, we are still recovering from that.”
Election consultant Charles Heath said a key point about Measure MB is it didn’t raise taxes.
“I don’t think we would be recommending moving this quickly into another election if we weren’t coming off of an election that didn’t [raise taxes] as it was just an extension of an existing tax,” Heath said. “And then we also have the opportunity to structure this bond so that it doesn’t increase taxes either. I typically see in most polling on bond extension structures, that the support level is typically 10 to 15 percentage points higher than it would be if we were looking at a traditional bond that involved an increase in tax rates. So that’s why we think it’s an opportunity we’re looking at right now.”
Board president Cathey Graves echoed Greenberg’s concern but also emphasized the board’s fiduciary responsibility.
“I am concerned as well of the appetite for our community to go out so quickly after our parcel tax,” she said. “But I know, as a board, one of our responsibilities is to protect our facilities. We need to make sure that our facilities are viable in the long term. We have had issues in the past where we’ve just put bandaids on things or had deferred maintenance and it’s come back to bite us. So we understand the importance as a board of maintaining those facilities even in a tight fiscal market.”
Trustee Jen Fenton said she was likewise concerned about “the optics” of pursuing a school bond so quickly after the parcel tax election. But she also warned that not tending to facility upkeep and upgrades tends to bleed from the district’s general fund, which is already under such duress that employee layoffs have been approved for the next school year.
“We have these looming budget issues from the state and we’re continuing to make cuts and continuing to see the impact on our general fund,” Fenton said. “Something like this could very much help our district, albeit it doesn’t go to salaries, to benefits, or to programming. It does go to our schools, where all of those things are housed.”
Trustee Tina Shivpuri said that if indeed the board were to go forward with a school bond election, the utmost care should be taken to learn from its past electoral successes.
“The most important thing in my mind is that we’re absolutely transparent,” she said. “And until we know the details of the facilities plan and what we envision for our school district, the improvements and renovations – then it will better help all of us in this room and outside this room understand what we’re what we’re going for.”
Deputy Superintendent Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard said the new facilities master plan would be presented to the board in early June, prior to the deadline for its decision to put a school bond measure on the November ballot.
The board voted unanimously to authorize opinion polling regarding a possible school bond ballot measure. The cost of the polling is $6,500 per month for a total cost not to exceed $44,750.
Graves expressed optimism for a school bond but said that understanding the community’s support level is critical.
“It’s very clear that we have a need, and the amount that you’re talking about seems appropriate, given inflation and the expense of construction,” she said. “We know costs have gone up significantly, so that’s important. But I think it’s crucial that we reach out to the community and poll and find out where they’re at before we move forward with this. When we have followed the polling, we’ve been successful in moving projects forward.”
Greenberg, who made the motion to authorize polling, said the results would determine the board’s next step.
“We know the work is needed in the schools,” he said. “And therefore, I think the [polling] work that’s being proposed this evening is equally needed to assess whether we should move forward. Obviously, if the data doesn’t support moving forward with the bond measure, we won’t. We’ll follow the data, and we will follow the lead of the community in that regard.” ER
