DISTRICT WON'T WAIT FOR BOND LOAN TO GET PROJECTS STARTED.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Choosing not to wait for passage of a state bond, the Antelope Valley Union High School District will borrow $25 million in short-term financing to begin construction of a high school in east Palmdale.

The district is taking advantage of a new ``bridge funding'' program that was created by the state because funds from earlier state school construction bonds dried up.

``We need to provide (school) housing by September 2003. That money will allow us to get that done,'' board member Al Beattie said.

The board at Wednesday's meeting voted 4-1 to approve a resolution authorizing the development of a funding program that will allow it to immediately proceed with construction of William J. ``Pete'' Knight High School.

The district also will use the money to add classrooms to Highland High School and build a Palmdale campus for Phoenix High School, the district's last stop for expelled students.

Trustees on Wednesday also approved contracts with firms to install two-story modular classroom buildings on the Knight campus and provide inspection and testing services for the project.

The board also approved agreements with five property owners who will grant road easements to the city of Palmdale for public access to the school.

Beattie said the district could wait until the state bond is approved, but that would mean having to pay for $1.2 million in financing to provide interim facilities versus paying $800,000 in interest and financing costs to do the ``bridge'' funding - so called because it would provide a financial bridge for the district until the other money is available.

``When you look at it from that point of view, we are actually saving money by doing this. It's not our intention that this is a long-term debt. The worst-case scenario is we don't get money from the state and use bond money to repay this amount,'' Beattie said.

The district's payments will be deferred for three years, the district report said.

The $65.6 million Knight High School, at 70th Street East and Avenue R-8, will accommodate 3,000 students. It will open next fall with freshmen attending classes in modular classrooms, officials said.

``We did pass a (local) bond, but the property tax base only allows us to draw about $50 million of that right now. We have another increment available to us in 2005,'' Beattie said. ``The bridge funding allows us to go ahead with the projects that voters want us to build and then come back in 2005 and repay it if we don't get any matching funds from the state.''

District voters in March passed a $103.6 million school construction measure.

The district bond also will pay for the construction of R. Rex Parris Continuation High School at Avenue Q and Sixth Street East, the Lancaster campus of Phoenix High, and modernizing Antelope Valley, Palmdale and Quartz Hill high schools.

Construction crews are scheduled to break ground on the Knight campus in the next two weeks, Assistant Superintendent Jeff Foster said.

State funds that the district was counting on to help build Knight High School instead will go to the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District. The LAUSD submitted $666 million worth of school construction projects that will likely consume the $450 million that's left of Proposition 1A, the $6.7 billion state school construction bond measure approved by voters in 1998.

That left the district to wait and see whether voters will approve a $13 billion state bond measure that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The system for disbursing state school construction funds was changed two years ago in response to state legislation as well as a lawsuit filed by LAUSD officials and parents who complained that the prior funding method shut out large urban districts.

Under the old method, money was allocated monthly on a first-come, first-served basis. The method favored smaller suburban school districts with plenty of land because they generally could submit applications more quickly than larger districts in cities where vacant land is scarce or has toxic problems.

The new formula involves a system of ``priority points,'' in which the State Allocation Board ranks applications every quarter by a series of factors such as current and projected shortages of student seats.

The quarterly allocations were limited to about $128 million, and the board also set aside $450 million to distribute in August, rather than giving it all out as the applications arrived.

The LAUSD still had to submit completed applications, but the additional time and priority system improved its chances for funding.