Chula Vista Bond Measure Could Build Affordable Housing For Teachers And Staff

Speaker 1: 00:00 The Chula Vista elementary school district has proposing to raise property taxes to help subsidize housing for teachers and staff. KPBS education reporter Joe Hong explains how the bond measure would work and how other districts across the state have tried to cover living costs for their employees across counties. Speaker 2: 00:17 Fornia school boards and superintendents are lamenting the lack of funding from the state, declining enrollment, rising pension costs and more students receiving special education services have tightened budgets statewide and this housing costs continue to rise in California. One school district could be the first in San Diego County to house its employees. Chula Vista elementary school district is asking voters to raise local property taxes to build a 100 unit affordable housing complex and subsidized rent for teachers and staff. Oscar ask Val oversees the district's finances. He said a school bond can help the district recruit and keep employees. Speaker 3: 00:53 It's, it's a result of this survey but also a result of, uh, the school districts need to, um, incentivize coming to children's to elementary school district for those positions that we have a difficult time hiring. For example, special education, English language learners. Speaker 2: 01:09 Measure M on the March ballot, the district is proposing a $300 million bond. Most of it would go to school repairs and modernization, but $65 million would go to affordable housing units for teachers and staff. Escoval said investing in these facilities is an investment in students. Speaker 3: 01:25 They are important. They'd been here for about almost 20 years now and we were one of the first school districts who have completely air conditioned all our schools classrooms. So as a priority to make sure students are comfortable in the learning environment. Speaker 2: 01:40 Chula Vista elementary school district employs more than 2,500 teachers and staff teacher salaries range from about $50,000 to just over a hundred thousand dollars a year. Susan skull is the president of the teacher's union at Chula Vista elementary school district. She said the union supports the bond over all, but it has concerns about district employees living in the same housing complex. Speaker 4: 02:02 You know, I mean, here we are, we're good friends, and then all of a sudden maybe I'm up late at night playing my music too loud and then you know, that goes to work with me or you know, it's another issue with another employee at a different site and I just see potential for complications. Speaker 2: 02:25 The bond measure would raise property taxes by up to $30 for every a hundred thousand dollars of property value. The San Diego County tax payers association, which reviews school bonds throughout the County did not endorse the measure. Kelly Baton is the director of policy at the association. She said the teacher housing component was the only thing holding me association back from endorsement. She said the district didn't provide enough details on how the money would be spent and how the housing complex would be maintained. Speaker 4: 02:52 When we look at bonds, we, if a district isn't specific on how they're going to use it, we tend to not support those because Speaker 5: 03:00 we want the voters to be aware and be educated on exactly how those funds are going to be spent. Speaker 2: 03:06 But Chula Vista isn't the first district in California to tackle affordable housing with a bond. Jefferson union high school district, just South of San Francisco is breaking ground this week on their employee housing unit, which is being funded with a bond measure that passed in 2018 school board president Kalema Salahudin said that 122 unit housing complex will help. But she called it a bandaid to the problem of recruiting and keeping teachers. She said the state needs to take education funding seriously for a more permanent solution. Speaker 6: 03:36 I didn't run for school board to become a housing developer, you know, that was never my intention or goal. Mmm. And to me it's just a reflection of where we are in the state when it comes to education that school boards are looking to have to do this in order to keep the staff that we need to educate our students. Speaker 2: 03:52 Measure M needs 55% of the votes, the path Chula Vista voters decide on March 3rd Joe Hong KPBS news, Speaker 5: 04:00 joining me is KPBS education reporter Joe hung and Joe, welcome. Thanks for having me. We've run some stories about school districts considering using some of their property to build affordable housing. But this is the first time is San Diego County school district is trying to do it. Do we know any details like how much the housing units could cost teachers or how interested teachers would be chosen for those housing units? Speaker 2: 04:27 Yeah, so those details aren't super clear at this point. It's hard to know because it'll take four to five years to build these units and we don't know how much property is going to cost and two of us at a time. But the district did tell me that they will cost about, uh, up to 80% of market value when they're finished being built in four to five years. And uh, so, but currently, um, a one bedroom apartment in Chula Vista cost about $1,700. So you take 80% of that, that's about 1360 for a one bedroom. Speaker 5: 04:58 And what is the argument against the measure M school bud? Speaker 2: 05:01 So I spoke with the, uh, the San Diego tax payers association. And really it's not an argument for housing teachers as much as it is a sort of a concern about the district's plan and the lack of details in the plan for how they're going to pay for these units. Speaker 5: 05:18 Okay. Let's move on to another measure, another school bond measure on the March ballot. It's measure P a $448 million bond to renovate schools in the Poway school district. But that district became notorious for badly planned to school bonds. Can you remind us about their last school bond? Speaker 2: 05:37 Yes. So, uh, it's become, it's come to be called the billion dollar bond in 2008. Uh, how the school district passed the bond measure, it was about a hundred million dollars. And as you know, there was a great recession back in 2008. So when the great recession happened, it dropped property values in that district and all of a sudden the district didn't have enough money to make those payments on those bonds and it ended up costing the district $1 billion with interest. So that's for every dollar of the bond, that's $9 of interest. Speaker 5: 06:10 So how is Poway trying to get voter support for this new bond? Speaker 2: 06:15 When I talked to the, the superintendent, uh, about a month ago, she said, you know, she assured me that this is a completely different leadership at the district and that, you know, in the time that other school districts have issued, you know, two or three bonds, Hauwei hasn't issued any. And she said a big part of it has been informing the community, meeting with parents and telling them, look, we need this bond and our facilities are aging. Speaker 5: 06:42 So the San Diego County taxpayers association is giving the green light to Poway ways measure P, what do they have to say about it? Speaker 2: 06:49 Yeah. So at the end of the day, uh, they're assessing these bonds based on the detailed details in their, in their plan. And, uh, according to the San Diego taxpayers association, Poway submitted one of the most detailed plans for repayment and, and demonstrated the need for renovations. Speaker 5: 07:06 Okay, then and, and finally there's a statewide school bond measure with the ironic name of proposition 13 unlike the more famous prop 13, a yes vote on this. Prop 13 could lead to higher property taxes in certain school districts. Joe, tell us why. So Speaker 2: 07:24 this is a prop 13, it's a $15 billion statewide bond. And basically what it would do is it would allow local school districts to apply for matches on their local bonds, like the local mines we've been talking about. And so what it would do, it would essentially allow local school districts to sort of lift the cap on how much property taxes they could raise. Speaker 5: 07:48 And this $15 billion statewide school bond. Do we know what the San Diego County school districts might get out of it? Speaker 2: 07:56 Oh yeah. It's, it's all pretty speculative at this point. But San Diego unified school district has expressed interest in applying for this Chulavista itself. In measure M bill, it says there'll be applying for the state match as well. And um, Poway as well is hoping to get a couple million from, from this bond. Speaker 5: 08:15 You know, we heard in your report and there's a lot said about the effect that the approval of these bonds may have on people's property taxes, but what kind of effect do they have on the schools that get this money? Speaker 2: 08:27 Yeah. So, uh, that's something a lot of people don't think about. I think, uh, you know, facilities make certain types of education possible, right? So think about how much technology has advanced in classroom technology has, um, looks completely different today than it did, uh, even a couple of years ago. Things like, um, every classroom needs wifi. Every classroom these days has like a, a tug, a giant touchscreen that has replaced basically the whiteboard. And while these, these bonds won't pay for those actual pieces of technology, but they create sort of the infrastructure and sort of the, the, the electrical systems that, that allow for this type of, uh, technology in the classroom and do all of these school Mon measures need a simple majority to pass. So, uh, the local ones need 55% of the votes. Uh, prop 13, the statewide bond needs a simple majority. Okay. I've been speaking with KPBS education reporter Joe hung and Joe. Thank you. Thank you.