San Diego County voters will decide 22 local school bond measures for K-12 and community college districts next month, on top of helping to decide a statewide $10 billion school bond measure in Proposition 2. Bond measures — which require 55 percent support to pass — are the only major tool that school districts have to raise money for improving or replacing facilities. They raise money by increasing property taxes for a set period of time, using the revenue to borrow money for facilities projects. The district pays back that money over the course of years, plus interest, so the total cost is significantly more than the amount listed on the bond measure on the ballot. School bond funding is separate from the general funding schools get from the state and cannot pay for general employee salaries. Several districts with bond measures on the ballot say they have calculated that they need hundreds of millions of dollars to replace aging and, in some cases, unsafe and unhealthy school buildings. About 38 percent of California’s public K-12 students attended a school that fell short of minimum facility standards as of 2020, according to a report by Public Policy Institute of California. Not all proposed bond projects on the ballot are for health and safety upgrades, though — others in some districts would fund efforts that range from classroom technology and employee housing to athletic facilities and career-technical education classrooms.   And many local districts are going for a bond now in hopes of getting a piece of funding from Proposition 2, should California voters approve it next month. Prop. 2 would provide a $10 billion infusion of school bond money to the state’s depleted school bond coffers. In order to get a matching share of those funds, districts have to pass their own local bond measure first. But getting bonds approved by voters has gradually become more difficult for school districts in recent years, according to the California Local Government Finance Almanac. In the last general election in November 2022, there were 99 school bond measures on the ballot statewide, and voters approved only 72 percent of them. That might sound like a good success rate, but it’s down from November 2020, when there were 60 school bond measures statewide and 80 percent passed. Historically since 2001, the success rate of school bond measures in California has averaged 80 percent, according to the almanac. Voters may be less likely to approve tax increases for school bond measures as the cost of living has become more expensive post-pandemic, said Julien LaFortune, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Damaged and decaying bricks are a common sight at Central Elementary School in Imperial Beach. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) He said that’s why school districts may be trying for bond measures with funding amounts that are significantly less than what they actually need, out of concern that they won’t be able to pass a measure with a higher bond amount. It is also generally more expensive now to raise school bond money, LaFortune said, because of high interest rates. School districts that have less property wealth within their boundaries, such as rural districts and districts that are geographically small, may also have a harder time passing bonds than districts with more property wealth, LaFortune said. That’s because high-wealth districts don’t have to raise taxes as steeply to raise a given amount of bond money; in a low-wealth district, taxes have to be raised at a higher rate to raise the same amount of money. For example Dehesa, a small school district in East County, is asking voters to raise taxes by $25 per $100,000 assessed valuation, which would produce $3.3 million in bond funding it needs to replace leaky roofs and outdated HVAC systems and make other upgrades. Meanwhile, San Diego Community College is also asking for a tax hike of $25 per $100,000 assessed valuation — but that bond measure will produce $3.5 billion because of the larger size of the district and the greater amount of property wealth within it. When evaluating school bond measures, LaFortune said it’s important to look at what kind of projects the bond money will go toward. Projects to improve safety conditions or improve core aspects of facilities, such as HVAC and classrooms, may help improve student outcomes — whereas spending on arguably less-essential projects such as athletic facilities, performing arts centers, student drop-off areas and land purchases likely won’t, he said. While at a walk-through at Central Elementary School in Imperial Beach, Jose Espinoza, the superintendent of the South Bay Union School District, looks over several pages on the conditions of Central and several other district schools.  (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Several school districts with bond measures on the November ballot say the money is desperately needed. Many are using portable classroom buildings that have long outlived their recommended lifespan. And many have facilities that are not up to current safety codes or disability accessible. The San Diego Community College District is hoping to get its first bond measure in 18 years to raise $3.5 billion to replace aging facilities and buildings, some of which are more than six decades old. The district has outdated electrical systems, classrooms without air conditioning, vocational programs that share classroom spaces and buildings whose walls and ceilings are falling apart, said Chancellor Gregory Smith. “We have to be watching and actively making sure that none of those collapse,” he said. The district’s buildings are so outdated and small that the district has had to turn away hundreds of students wanting to enroll in certain high-demand classes, such as its English as a second language program, because classrooms don’t have enough space, Smith said. The Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District in rural North County is hoping to get its first bond measure in 32 years to raise $85 million. “Every time we have major storms, we’re running around trying to repair roofs,” said Superintendent Ron McCowan. The district also wants to build new facilities for transitional kindergarten, culinary arts, video production and shop classes, an all-weather track at its middle school and more. And Warner Unified School District in far rural northeastern San Diego County is pursuing a $3.8 million bond measure to install a new drinking well and water treatment system, because its existing well is contaminated with arsenic and the district has lacked clean water for years. At the other end of the county, the South Bay Union School District in Imperial Beach is trying to pass two bond measures at the same time to address safety issues with its facilities. It hopes to replace inefficient single-pane windows, gas pipes that aren’t up to code, inaccessible doorways, dirt playgrounds, old roofs and more. The district has identified $500 million in basic facilities needs, but for now it is only going for $125 million between its two measures and will have to prioritize projects, Superintendent Jose Espinoza said. Even that $125 million amount exceeds the district’s bonding capacity, so the district hopes the state will grant it a waiver to allow it to raise that much. The server room at Central Elementary School in Imperial Beach is in need of major updating. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) But the measures face challenges. The district’s two measures will be among five school bond measures on some South Bay voters’ ballots next month, in addition to measures proposed by Sweetwater Union High School District, Southwestern College and the state’s Proposition 2. “We are very concerned” about bond competition, Espinoza said. “We know that everybody’s going out for a bond because of the way that the state has chosen to allocate their funds.” There’s also opposition from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, which endorsed all local school bond measures on the November ballot except the ones proposed by five school districts: Sweetwater Union High, Chula Vista Elementary, South Bay Union, Lemon Grove and Dehesa. The association’s reasons varied. It said some districts did not provide key details, others did not promise or adopt policies to promote fair competition and some said they would use bond money for employee housing but gave too little detail. Haney Hong, the group’s leader, said the association also wanted to see districts show that they have done their best to maintain their facilities. If a school district has not been spending enough on maintaining its buildings, it’s not fair for taxpayers to have to pay for that through bond measures, he argued. Leaders of some districts that received non-endorsements, including South Bay and Dehesa, took issue with the association’s grades, and with the fact that the association did not visit their schools or talk with them first. They worry the non-endorsements will hurt their ability to raise badly needed funding. Dehesa Superintendent Bradley Johnson said the group’s criteria don’t account for issues specific to small districts like his.