What would Fresno Unified’s largest-ever $500 million school bond pay for? What we know

Reality Check is a Fresno Bee series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email tips@fresnobee.com .

The Fresno Unified School District will ask voters next month to pass its largest-ever bond measure to pay for repairs to aging facilities and reduce overcrowded classrooms.

The $500 million bond, Measure H, is one of several Fresno County school bonds on the ballot this election, which will include a combined $1.3 billion in proposed bond spending. Clovis Unified is proposing a $400 million bond to finish construction of the new Clovis South High School. Central Unified and Sanger Unified are placing $109 million bond and $174 million bond, respectively.

Fresno Unified officials are still figuring out how, exactly, they would spend the new bond funds, but say they urgently need voters to support the new bond.

Here’s what we know.

School infrastructure is falling apart, officials say

Lola Medina Flores, a junior at Fresno High, said the school’s iconic Royce Hall is the “coolest” place on campus, not for its historical significance to the area’s oldest high school, but for being the only building where the air conditioning never breaks down.

“Other ACs would break down at some point. Our student leadership congregation room doesn’t have AC,” she said. “At least one class a week needs to be moved to another location, depending on classroom availability, because some classrooms have no windows and the temperature is too high.”

Fresno High’s cafeteria, a semi-basement lobby dwarfed by rows of seating and boxes stacked against the wall, serves 2,000 students each day.

But the cafeteria doesn’t have enough seating, so students eat outside where there are only a handful of covered tables and benches, Medina Flores said. Some teachers allow students to eat in their classrooms.

The district has long planned to build a two-story new cafeteria and used part of 2010’s Measure Q to fund its design. District officials, though, bumped construction to future bonds and it keeps taking a backseat to other projects deemed more urgent.

With more than two-thirds of its 106 schools built before 1970, the state’s third-largest school district estimates it needs more than $2.5 billion for infrastructure improvements.

A 2023 district-wide facility assessment found that need is more evident in Fresno Unified’s elementary schools, half of which the district assessed as being in “poor” and “unsatisfactory” conditions. These schools have “numerous problems meeting (students’) educational needs” and require major repairs, according to the assessment.

Interim Superintendent Misty Her said the district made “band-aid” repairs to several water mains at elementary schools close to breaking. But she said it was “just a matter of time” before a major break forces schools to close.

“My worst fear is what do we do when entire elementary school kids can’t go to school and we don’t have anywhere else to put them because we have major pipes that break,” Her said.

Some campuses are too outdated to meet the ADA requirements for children with disabilities to travel to the nurse’s office.

“We have a child that needs to have a procedure done every single day, we can’t even get the student’s wheelchair into the nurse’s office,” Her said. “This is a life-saving procedure for a child. This is what we’re talking about when I say we need this bond.”

What the bond would pay for

While the project list has not yet been finalized and approved by the school board, some of the key needs include infrastructure maintenance, such as air conditioning, water and sewer, play equipment, and adding turf, track, lights and safety features.

In past bond allocations, Fresno Unified distributed funds evenly to each high school region, with the exception of large expenditures such as building new schools and career and technical education facilities.

For the new bond, district leaders want to prioritize projects in schools with the worst conditions, even if it means some trustee areas would see less funding because their schools are in better overall condition.

Fresno Unified has developed an equity index that ranks schools using a formula that factors students’ socioeconomic status, facility conditions, facility suitability and sustainability, and how schools benefit their neighborhood.

“When you look at the distribution of who is more likely to be in a poor condition facility, who is less likely to be in an outdated one, there’s a pattern where it relates to students’ demographics and also where they could attend,” said Anton Blewett from RSS Consultants, the contracted firm that developed the tool.

Trustee Andy Levine, who championed the equity index, said prioritizing schools with the greatest needs helps improve student outcomes.

Teachers’ union gets a carveout

As a result of last year’s negotiated teachers’ union contract, one-third of the bond —- $167 million —- will be invested in classrooms. This includes replacing outdated portables and upgrading learning and meeting spaces.

Fresno Unified has 1,085 portable buildings that were added to school sites to cope with temporary demands. The life span of the portables averages 20-30 years, but 1,004 of those portables are more than 20 years old. More than 30 portables are more than 60 years old.

“We have some portables that qualify for AARP benefits,” Trustee Elizabeth Jonason Rosas said at a recent board meeting.

“These buildings were not intended to be there that long, and that produces all kinds of conditions,” she said. “We’ve heard about molds, I’ve seen ripped carpets, and there are accessibility issues when the pavement sinks.”

A familiar cycle

Like clockwork, the district has asked voters every four years to pass a school bond.

Measure H will be the fourth Fresno Unified bond since 2010 to go before voters, who passed the $350 million Measure M in 2020, $225 million Measure X in 2016 and $280 million Measure Measure Q in 2010.

So, why does Fresno Unified want to pass yet another bond?

Part of the reason stems from the way school facilities are funded in California. While the state pays schools per student for operational costs, such as salaries for teachers, administrators and classified staff, it’s largely up to local districts to fund capital needs like building new schools or modernizing older ones.

Though there is no organized opposition campaign, the school district could encounter voter fatigue at the ballot box. Officials, though, say they keep going out for school bonds because the district’s aging facilities require billions of dollars in backlogged repairs.

Measure H would only cover about 20% of Fresno Unified’s current infrastructure backlog, according to Paul Idsvoog, the district’s chief operations officer.

The district will exhaust the remaining $60 million from Measure M in the next two years, Idsvoog said. Roughly $80 million of deferred maintenance and remaining projects earmarked in previous bonds will be carried to Measure H.

How bond impacts taxpayers

The $500 million which will result in a tax increase of $25 per $100,000 assessed valuation. The current tax rate of $213.86 is the second highest of all K-12 school districts in Fresno County. If the new bond is passed with the required 55% voter approval, the tax rate will rise to $238.86.