July 21, 2024—The San Diego Union Tribune’s Kristen Taketa spoke with Deputy Managing Attorney Nicole Gon Ochi on Proposition 2, the $10 billion school facilities bond which will be on California’s November 2024 ballot to help districts and community colleges across the state renovate and replace aging school buildings. Although many districts are in need of state funds from this bond—including more than $225 million in needs from San Diego County schools—inequities are baked into the way California doles out school facilities funds.
Public Advocates, a law firm and advocacy group that has been a major voice calling for the state to reform how it funds school facilities, instead wants a sliding scale system: The poorest districts would get as much as a 95 percent state funding match while paying 5 percent, and the wealthiest districts would receive 5 percent from the state while paying 95 percent.
Proposition 2 would institute a sliding scale, but a much narrower one — it would only pay districts between 50 and 65 percent, depending on the district’s property tax base and the percentage of students enrolled who are disadvantaged.
Factoring in the latter would give a boost to large school districts that enroll many low-income students but already have high property wealth, like Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, Public Advocates noted.
Proposition 2’s new formula wouldn’t go far enough to fix the inequities of the current funding system, said Public Advocates deputy managing attorney Nicole Gon Ochi. The firm said it is considering suing the state over the measure’s distribution formula.
“We believe that the very minor changes to the distribution formula are not enough to overcome some of the constitutional problems,” Gon Ochi said.
