DON'T BE SWAYED BY SCARE TACTICS AGAINST PROP. 39 ELECTION 2000.

Byline: Bill Hauck

OUR schools and our kids desperately need Proposition 39. Over the next decade, California will need to build 20,000 additional classrooms just to keep pace with student enrollment growth - 4,200 new classrooms will need to be built in Los Angeles County alone within the next five years. Even more will be needed to implement and expand successful class-size reduction programs that have been proved to improve student learning and discipline.

There is no question that we need to build new classrooms and repair older ones. Instead, the question is ``how.''

Proposition 39 is the fiscally responsible solution supported by seniors, parents, teachers and business leaders to start dealing with California's classroom crunch.

Proposition 39 will reform the way school districts raise and spend money for school construction and repair by giving local taxpayers and voters more control over the school spending system.

Specifically, passage of Proposition 39 will:

--Prohibit the use of local school bond money for bureaucracy or administrative salaries;

--Set the threshold to pass local school bonds at a tough 55 percent super-majority, and only allow these votes during regularly scheduled, not ``special'' elections;

--Place a strict cap on the amount property taxes can increase when voters approve school bonds. For the average California homeowner, the maximum cap amounts to less than $100 per year;

--Require school districts to provide voters with a specific listof school construction projects to be financed by a proposed bond;

--Require school districts to commission two independent audits annually throughout the life of a school bond to ensure bond funds are spent only on voter-approved projects; and

--Mandate new citizen watchdog committees of local parents, seniors, taxpayers and business leaders empowered with new tools to stop projects if audits show wasteful or unauthorized spending and to prosecute violators.

An unprecedented coalition has come together in support of Proposition 39. Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, the California Chamber of Commerce, AARP, the California State PTA and the California Business Roundtable have joined more than 400 other community groups and leaders in their efforts to gain voter approval of Proposition 39 on Election Day.

Opponents of Proposition 39, namely the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, are waging a deceptive campaign against Proposition 39 with bogus claims of ``unlimited property tax increases'' - all with the goal of scaring voters into contributing money to their organization. Sadly, the primary victims of the scare tactics are elderly homeowners who fall easy prey to the ``save our homes'' rhetoric.

But these scare tactics are rebutted by the facts - and by California's own impartial legislative analyst. In the official voter guide mailed to voters' homes, the legislative analyst says at the time a school bond is issued, the tax rate can be ``no more than $60 per $100,000 of taxable property value.'' Current law has no limit on the amount property taxes can be raised for voter-approved school bonds and taxpayers get these added protections only if voters approve Proposition 39.

Proposition 39 is desperately needed to fix our schools and fix the way our schools spend money. For our children and for all California taxpayers, vote yes on Proposition 39.