A special meeting is set for Thursday at 6 p.m. for the Saugus Union School District governing board to vote on putting a bond measure on the November ballot.
The board was scheduled to vote on Tuesday after hearing a presentation on why a $190 million bond measure is necessary for school facilities improvements, but a late notice from a local developer on the levying of taxes caused changes to be made to the ballot measure language.
The updated resolution has the bond measure providing $187 million to the district.
According to board President Matt Watson, the district was made aware of an agreement with a local developer that says the district will not levy taxes on a parcel of undeveloped land until the houses being built there are sold. That agreement was struck prior to Measure EE and the district was unaware that the land was still undeveloped.
Nick Heinlein, assistant superintendent of business services, added that the mitigation agreement states that taxes will not be levied until a final tract map has been recorded. While preparing the ballot language, the district was unaware that one had not been made yet for the next phase of the project.
The district’s legal counsel assured the board that the ballot language change would be minimal and would not affect the scope of the measure.
According to a news release from the district, the issue was brought to the district’s attention late Monday afternoon, roughly 24 hours before Tuesday’s meeting.
Thursday’s meeting is set to be held at the district’s administrative office located at 24930 Avenue Stanford.
Ballot language
According to the resolution that will be presented on Thursday, the district would be asking voters the following:
“To retrofit classrooms/ schools, improve preparedness for earthquakes, wildfires, natural disasters; upgrade secured school entries and safety systems; expand early childhood education classrooms; and construct/ repair sites and facilities; shall Saugus Union School District’s (SFID 2014-1) measure be adopted, authorizing $187 million in bonds at legal rates, levying $30 per $100,000 of assessed valuation, generating $13 million annually while bonds are outstanding, requiring audits, oversight, and all funds for local schools?”
Specifically, the district is looking at securing funding to retrofit buildings that have been identified in the Assembly Bill 300 report titled “Seismic Safety Inventory of California Public Schools” that was released in 2002, as well as other security and quality learning environment upgrades.
According to Heinlein, a total of 25 buildings at five school sites have been identified as needing either rehabilitation or replacement: six at both Cedarcreek and Skyblue Mesa elementary schools, five at both Rosedell and Rio Vista elementary schools and three at Emblem Academy.
Highlands Elementary would also need upgrades as more students enroll in the dual language immersion program, Heinlein said. For the 2025-26 school year, the campus would need 14 classrooms for that program, bringing the total number of classrooms needed overall to 33, he said.
Currently, there are 25 classrooms, including three portables that were all built in the early 1990s and are at the end of their life cycles, Heinlein said.
Other school sites would need additional classrooms to satisfy the need for transitional kindergarten growing, with 28 more needed, Heinlein added.
Heinlein said the district is awaiting a letter from the Division of the State Architect that would say how much each project is expected to cost. The DSA became involved due to a project at Skyblue Mesa that required DSA approval, which led to seismic work being done. The district then did the same seismic work at each of the aforementioned buildings, Heinlein said.
Board member Anna Griese said she was surprised to see a bond measure being proposed since the last community survey done in 2022 showed only 56% of respondents said they would support one. Should the measure be on the ballot this November, a minimum of 55% of voters would have to approve it.
Superintendent Colleen Hawkins said there was a 4% margin of error associated with that survey.
Griese also said the board was not aware of the additional projects related to security and quality learning environments listed in the resolution, only the retrofitting of buildings, and questioned why the board was not included in that discussion.
“But isn’t that within the purview of the board to help make those decisions for the district?” Griese asked. “Maybe not typical for SUSD, but isn’t that within our purview?”
Hawkins added that should the bond money not be enough to cover every project on the district’s wish list, the buildings needing retrofitting would be first in line followed by security projects.
In terms of liability, Hawkins said putting the measure on the ballot would show that the district had attempted to secure funding to upgrade facilities and, according to the district’s legal counsel, “was the best means of liability coverage for the district.”
A tax rate statement would be included in the ballot measure, as required by law, that would provide examples of what a taxpayer could end up paying.
It would cost $350,000 to put the measure on the ballot, according to Heinlein. There could be added costs associated with fact sheets being sent out to voters, Mueller said, but those would have to be impartial.
Funding sources
There have been three successful bond measures for the district: 1993, 2002 and 2014. The last one, Measure EE, passed with approximately 58% of voters approving it.
The new measure being proposed would levy a tax of $30 per $100,000 of a property’s assessed value, the maximum allowed for the measure being proposed to the board.
Historically, according to Keith Weaver, director of services for Government Financial Services Joint Powers Authority, general obligation bond measures such as this one have passed in the county at an 84% rate since 2010.
On top of the districtwide measure being proposed, there is also a $10 billion statewide bond measure being proposed that would require a majority of voters to approve it. Should that happen, $8.5 billion would be made available for K-12 schools.
Weaver said the state would match up to 60% for modernization projects and 50% for new construction. He added that seismic safety projects would be eligible for approximately $30 million in matching funds.
The district bond measure would have to be approved for the state to approve matching funds, Weaver said.
Should the measure pass in November, the tax would likely run through 2058.
Along with the tax, Weaver said housing prices typically increase by about 6% every 10 years following a successful bond measure, a fact that board member Katherine Cooper said was “kind of cool.”
“I think it’s really important to keep the schools up because that’s what I always hear about Santa Clarita is people move out here for the schools,” Cooper said.
Board member Patti Garibay said she knows the state mandates that buildings be upgraded to align with building codes, but wished that the state would offer more to help fund those projects.
“It’s a requirement for us to take care and make sure that our kids are safe,” Garibay said. “So just want to point that out.”
Other sources of funding for capital improvement projects include taxes on new developments and grants, neither of which would be enough to fund the projects being discussed, Weaver said.
