LAUSD EYES BOND PROPOSALS FOR HELP FINISHING PROJECTS DISTRICT EXPECTING FUNDING SHORTFALL.

Byline: HARRISON SHEPPARD Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- Even as most Los Angeles government agencies are scrambling for their piece of the $43billion in bonds that voters approved in November, some -- such as Los Angeles Unified -- are also gearing up to snag an entirely new round of proposed funding.

In his State of the State address this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for $29 billion in general obligation bonds to be submitted to voters in 2008 and 2010, along with $14 billion in other bonds that do not require voter approval.

And Los Angeles Unified School District officials, in particular, are eyeing those bonds to aid a forecasted funding shortfall for its $20 billion school-building project.

The LAUSD's chief facilities executive, Guy Mehula, said the district has identified all but about $1.6 billion of the funding sources it needs to complete the program.

``With current trends, we've got plenty of money to do everything we've got under construction, but we have a potential need in '09 and '10 for an additional $1.6 billion of state match that is not being provided right now,'' Mehula said. ``That's why we're aggressively looking at a legislative solution.''

Following the formula

The district, he said, is hampered by state funding formulas that decrease eligibility for districts that are expecting declining enrollment. Those state formulas, he thinks, exaggerate long-term enrollment trends and shut the LAUSD out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

But state officials say the formula is fair and note that calculations used by other state programs have benefitted the LAUSD.

Kathy Hicks, chief of program services for the state Office of Public School Construction, said the district would have been eligible for more funding if its projects had been ready when its enrollment was still growing.

``Unfortunately, L.A. is suffering from having not been able to take advantage of their eligibility while they were a growing district,'' she said. ``Now they are facing declining enrollment and facing the pressure of that loss of eligibility.''

Reviewing backlog

The State Allocation Board, which distributes funds to school districts, will meet Wednesday to review a backlog of $318 million in construction and modernization projects that were ready to go but waiting for funding after previous school bonds were exhausted.

After that, Hicks said, the board will continually approve projects on a first-come, first-served basis as long as they meet the basic eligibility requirements. The board typically approves about $102 million in new construction projects and $83 million in modernization projects every month, she said.

Schwarzenegger's overall Strategic Growth Plan calls for a $211 billion investment in state infrastructure over the next 10 years. He plans to submit almost $12 billion in bonds for K-12 education to voters in 2008 and 2010, along with bonds for higher education, flood control and court facilities.

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com

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