SAN DIEGO—Twenty-two school bonds totaling $6.7 billion were put in front of San Diego County voters in the November election. It is the highest number of school bonds placed on the ballot in San Diego County’s nearly half-century voting history.

Bonds are used by school districts to borrow money and can involve an increase in property taxes to pay for them.

Of the 22 bonds, 14 are projected to pass, totaling $6.1 billion in funding.

“It surprises me in that it’s just a big number; the number of governments that are looking for more tax dollars,” Haney Hong, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association (SDCTA), said.

“I’ve never seen this many tax proposals, so I’m shocked in that way,” Hong told The Epoch Times, “But I am also not surprised. ... This is the problem that we have in California. It is going to continue until we really start to change some fundamental things.”

One of the fundamental problems, according to Hong, is the governance structure.

“We have way too many local governments,” school districts included, he said, “and a lot of money is spent on management.”

The other issue is “out of control” labor costs—including the “upward trend” of teacher’s compensation, Hong said, adding that it is “the main driver” of the increasing costs for local governments, to the point that schools can’t afford regular maintenance.

“They’re just not doing the maintenance they should do. Then, stuff breaks [and] they go out for a bond to get the money to fix it. We’re seeing a lot more bonds,” he said.

In California, the general funds that school districts receive from the state are used for basic school operations, including salaries. But for projects such as major repairs, renovation, and new construction, school districts have to rely on bonds.

San Diego County has several hundred public schools that are under the jurisdiction of 42 school districts, 18 of which issued one or more bond measures this year. The district had a total enrollment of about 477,000 K–12 students for the 2022–2023 school year, according to the San Diego County Office of Education.

The SDCTA supported 15 of the 22 bond measures and opposed the rest.

School Districts Say Bonds Needed

Two measures put on the ballot by two of the five San Diego County community college districts requested the highest amount of money.

San Diego Community College District’s Bond Measure HH is $3.5 billion, and Southwestern Community College District’s Measure SW is $800 million.

The SDCTA supported both measures. And both are projected to pass.

Measure HH’s ballot label says the bond will be used to repair classrooms, protect college affordability, prepare students for careers including in nursing, firefighting, science, and engineering, and improve veteran and homeless student resources, among other uses.

“This was our first one in 18 years,” Bernie Rhinerson, San Diego Community College District Board of Trustees president, told The Epoch Times. The money is expected to be used over the next two decades to support four colleges, which have seven campuses in the city of San Diego.

Rhinerson said the bond is necessary to support some of the major costs that the state does not fund.

Measure W by Cajon Valley Union School District in East County San Diego, which asked voters to authorize a $280 million bond, was also supported by the SDCTA.

David Miyashiro, the district’s superintendent, said the bond is needed to fix old facilities and equip campuses with new security systems.

He said some of the schools in the district are more than 150 years old.

“The plumbing, infrastructure, even electricity, all the different things that need to be modernized, are very expensive to do,” Miyashiro said.

The district also hopes to add security systems with keyless entries and functioning cameras to monitor campuses.

“These should-be standard safety procedures are tens of millions of dollars to put in across the district’s 28 schools,” he said, noting that these types of upgrades can be accomplished only with bonds.

Unofficial election results on Nov. 15 showed that Measure W got a 51.6 percent “Yes” vote, a few percent short of the 55 percent threshold for passing.

Should the bond measure fail, the district may also lose its opportunity to access the $10 billion state bond that was presented to the voters in the same November election as Proposition 2 and is projected to pass. Prop. 2, also called the Public School and Community College Facility Fund, would provide matching funding to local bonds.

“It stings,” Miyashiro said. However, the district will likely place the bond measure back on the ballot in 2026, he said.

Voters Stretched Thin

With San Diego Community College District’s $3.5 billion bond projected to pass, Rhinerson said the district is very appreciative to voters.

“It shows voters’ confidence in the district. And I think the voters recognize how important the educational mission is of our community colleges and the impact that we have on the local economy and preparing students to get jobs and improve their lives through education,” he said.

Besides the Cajon Valley District’s measure, many of the bonds likely to fail are from the rural parts of San Diego County. Haney suggested that is because people in those areas already “are stretched to the max” and “didn’t want to have to pay more in taxes.”

Estimated average property tax rates for the 14 projected-to-pass bonds range from $19 to $40 per $100,000 assessed valuation of the property. For example, with a $25 levy rate on a property with an assessed valuation of $500,000, the owner will see an extra $125 annual tax on their property tax bill to pay for the bond.

If the property is within a school district and a community college district that both have passing bonds, the owner would have to pay extra taxes for both bonds.

Hong said if the state and local districts “budgeted appropriately to school facility needs,” voters would be asked for fewer bonds.

“Unfortunately, very few people see what’s happening across the system,” he said.

When people see facilities are broken, they want to get better facilities for the kids, Hong said. So a lot of times, the bonds pass.

“If everyone keeps passing these bonds, then what incentive does the state have to budget appropriately?” he said.