Manteca Unified voters may be asked to approve a $260 million bond measure in March to address a variety of long-term maintenance issues from aging roofs and electrical systems to heating/air systems to modernizing classrooms for 21st century academic endeavors
If two thirds or five trustees concur at Tuesday’s school board meeting, the bond measure will be placed on the March 3 ballot. The trustees meet at 7 p.m. at the district office board room at 2271 West Louise Avenue.
The bond requires 55 percent of votes cast to be in the affirmative to be approved. It will impose a tax of $60 per $100,000 of assessed value. That means if your home has an assessed value under Proposition 13 of $300,000, you would pay an additional $180 a year in taxes.
Voters authorized Measure G in November 2014 for $159 million. Money from those bonds has updated Lincoln, Shasta, Sequoia, Lathrop, and Golden West elementary schools. Projects using the bond money are now in the process of moving forward at Manteca High, East Union High, and Sierra High as well as New Haven, Nile Garden, New Haven, and French Camp elementary schools. Design of the third phase and what schools will be addressed using what Measure M money remains will start next year.
Should voters approve the new bond measure in March, by the time bonds are marketed and sold the school district will be finishing up the current work underway at Manteca High and other campuses and work well underway for the third and final phase. The timing is designed to allow the district to continue working on upgrading existing campuses without creating time lags that can eat up bonding capacity through construction inflation.
The Measure G bonds are still being retired along with the $66 million Measure M bond approved by voters in 2014.
The new bond — if passed — will tackle just over two-fifths of the $625 million in remaining safety needs and instructional space for existing students the district that the first two bonds weren’t able to cover. None of the money would go toward building new classroom space to accommodate growth.
The district has $24.6 million in developer fees collected on a per square footage basis of all new construction and $29.9 million in Community Facilities District tax recipts on hand. The CFD funds are restricted to schools within the geographic areas they are collected. Together the two sources of facility funding represent $54.5 million, leaving a $570 million shortfall.
$199 million needed
for safety work alone
Of the $625 million needed in today’s dollars, $199 million is needed for safety work.
Almost all of that is rollover needs based on the Masters Facilities Plan used as the basis for the successful $159 million Measure M bond that voters approved in 2014. That plan identified $298.1 million in pressing health and safety issues on district campuses. The bond measure was wedded with other funds to provide $170.1 million for the work needed.
Back in 2014, the bond went forward while realizing $130.1 million in needed health and safety work would not be tackled. Since then construction inflation has been averaging close to 8 percent a year. Not only has that swelled the cost to perform the unfunded work to $158.3 million but it also has eaten into work that is being done meaning less work than anticipated will be accomplished when Measure M funds are spent hence the $199 million still needed for safety work.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
