DISTRICTS LOOK PAST BOND FUNDS.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

Districts that have been left out of state funding programs for modernization and construction have only a few options to boost their funding - to pass a local bond measure or to try to collect the maximum in fees from developers.

For the first time in 10 years, the Conejo Unified School District has tried both. Its $97 million bond proposal failed to capture a two-thirds majority in two separate elections, but now the board of trustees plans to move forward with the developer fee hike to charge $1.93 per square foot of residential development and 31 cents for commercial.

For parent volunteer Debbie Gregory, the fact that Conejo's developer fees remained at $1.56 per square foot - the 1988 fee - while other neighboring districts including Las Virgenes and Moorpark were racing toward higher caps set by the State Allocation Board remains unacceptable.

``Our schools are in a deplorable condition. Some of them are unsafe and they are not always conducive to learning. I'd like to add that I was a bond supporter out there trying to convince people to pass it,'' Gregory said. ``But I am appalled at some of the district's decisions.''

But district officials maintain that there was no justification to increase developer fees due to a lull in growth that began in the late 1980s and lasted into the early 1990s. Even in recent years since the upswing in student enrollment, school capacity has remained comparable to roomier periods in the district's history and school fees have remained at the 1988 level.

Gregory is among a group of residents asking why the district didn't negotiate higher fees for the series of new projects to have won the city council's approval in recent years bringing hundreds of additional school-age children into the areas around the Lang Ranch, Dos Vientos and Woodridge developments.

``Some residents have said that the developers will be making millions of dollars off their plans and argue that the city and the school district should get a bigger piece of that,'' said Sean Corrigan, director of planning and facilities. ``But as a matter of law, we can only levy a fee that reasonably reflects the impact the developer's addition will have on our agency.''

Officials note, however, that with three former school campuses now being used for alternative programs - the Triunfo, Waverly and Horizon Hills sites - instead of to accommodate the general student population, the district would have had a hard time proving that a fee increase to build additional facilities would have been justified.

``The thing is that school districts really had to be able to justify those hikes,'' said Thomas Duffy, Moorpark superintendent and also a past chair of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing.

``A school district like Moorpark, which is the fastest-growing district in the county and one of the fastest in the entire state, could easily justify those hikes. But I know a district like Conejo where the city was approaching build-out and suffered during the recession might have had a harder time,'' he said.

Meanwhile, enrollment is increasing in the district.

Initial projections of the coming school year already show a continuing upswing in student enrollment, with an additional 558 children signing up for the fall. Over the past five years the district has counted an average of 350 more students each year with the figure reaching its peak last year with 700 new faces.

District officials said much of that growth has come from turnover in older neighborhoods, with younger families moving into the older homes of retiring couples who are moving to smaller houses or outside the city. And with the growth coinciding with class size reduction, existing students are getting caught in the squeeze.

Gregory said she still believes the district officials could have pushed harder to negotiate higher fees from developers to foot the bill for construction projects.

``We keep adding these trailers to our schools, but I'm not convinced that's the best answer,'' she said. ``I think the children of Conejo deserve the state-of-the-art schools a lot of other kids in other districts are getting.''