DISTRICT HEAD SEES THREAT IN SCHOOL BILLS; FUNDING MEASURES DRAW FIRE.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

Several bills in the state Legislature could change the way funds are obtained to build new schools and one local superintendent said the consequences could be devastating for the Santa Clarita Valley.

``It would have multimillion-dollar impacts on this district,'' Robert Lee, the superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School School District, said of the package of bills that could allow home builders to carry less of the burden for school construction.

Lee said that if the developers are allowed to pay less, the cost will either have to be made up by local taxpayers or the quality of existing schools will have to be watered down.

And if taxpayers are asked to foot more of the bill, Lee said, residents of Canyon Country, for example, could find themselves paying for schools anywhere in the Santa Clarita Valley, including Newhall Ranch.

The Santa Clarita City Council will consider the matter Tuesday and has been asked by city staff to reaffirm its position that it be allowed to require developers to pay school construction costs as determined by the local school districts.

``This community and the city is waking up to the fact that the developers are trying to get out from under paying their fair share, and their solution is to shift that burden onto the backs of local taxpayers,'' Lee said.

The state Legislature is also paying attention to the issue. Sen. Leroy Greene, D-Sacramento, is the chair of the Senate's Education Committee and a special committee created this year to give consideration to the school financing bills.

Greene said none of the bills has yet made it to his committee and he has no feel for how the debate will shake out. He said he has problems with the arguments made from both sides, including the schools, which sometimes forget the money they're talking about is someone else's money.

Richard Lyon, the senior lobbyist of the California Building Industry Association, said he hopes Greene's committee comes up with a package that meets the school construction needs but spreads the funding burden.

Builders' issues

Lyon said there are five key issues to be addressed:

How much will a developer/new homeowner have to pay for each new home built toward school construction costs? The state minimum is now $1.84 per square foot per residential unit.

What should school districts be required to do to help keep costs down and lobby for state funds?

Should the two-thirds vote needed to pass local school construction bonds be lowered to a simple majority?

What should be done to lower the costs of building schools?

What will be the state's commitment as far as bond financing goes?

Lyon said the burden of new school construction should not be left to the builders and new home buyers. ``Most of the school-age population comes from existing housing stock,'' Lyon said.

And a lot of school districts, he said, have opted to not solicit construction funds from the state or from local taxpayers through bond elections. ``They're willing to take the easy way out and just charge high (developer) fees,'' Lyon said.

Home prices hit

The high builder fees hurt the housing market, driving up prices and making it more difficult for families to buy homes, Greene and Lyon said.

Some of the bills in the Legislature would take away control from local governments to bargain for more than the state-set impact fee, now $1.84 per square foot.

The $1.84 figure, which school districts say is woefully low, in many cases is working, Lyon said. Some schools, he said, are making do with the current fee and making up the difference by collecting tax money for bonds and by changing to year-round schedules to collect more money from the state.

But by over crowding schools, home values will also drop, said Keith Pritsker, who leads a homeowners association in Stevenson Ranch and has just formed another group, the Santa Clarita Schools Committee.

The group has been formed with less than a dozen members, he said, to prevent school overcrowding and the drop in property values and quality of life that it would bring.

``We don't want to see that eroded away,'' Pritsker said.

He said the prospect of good schools is one key reason many families move to the area and if they all become impacted, word will get out that the area is no longer a good place to buy a home.

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Photo: Home builders, such as the one constructing Valencia's NorthP ark housing tract, could get relief in paying for school construction.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News