Schools
KHSD's planned $43,000 bond mailer raises questions
School Facilities Bonds are part of the state wide plan for educators to suck more money out of Taxpayers for Education.
CUSD has spent $40,000 multipletimesKHSD's planned $43,000 bond mailer raises questions
MONDAY, SEP 5, 2016 5:00 PM— updated 7 hours ago
The link to a slide presentation is here:
In bold the mailer reads: “The Kern High School District Repair and Modernization Plan.” It boasts of student accomplishments, laments the deteriorating state of school facilities, and specifically mentions the district's $280 million bond measure as a way “to serve our growing population of students.”
“The district intends to seek voter approval of the plan this coming November,” the pamphlet reads. “If 55% of district voters approve, the upgrades detailed in the plan will be implemented in classrooms and school sites throughout the district.”
Does that sound like it’s advocating for a school bond?
It’s more than a rhetorical question. The answer decides whether it’s a legal expenditure of public money.
The issue, which is being debated at schools across the state this election cycle, came to light locally when The Californian discovered through a California Public Records Act request that the Kern High School District in April was preparing to spend $43,611 on 100,000 mailers. It's debatable whether that mailer, which the district says is still in draft form and has not been sent out, flies in the face of a January opinion by state Attorney General Kamala Harris on whether public dollars can be spent on bond campaign activity.
The document was produced by Providence Strategic Consulting, with which KHSD had a $70,000 no-bid contract to inform the public about school programs. That lasted from March 7 until the end of June, when the bond qualified for the November ballot.
KHSD Deputy Superintendent of Business Scott Cole described the mailer as “low priority” and said it hadn't been vetted to ensure it complies with an education code allowing public funds to be spent on “fair and impartial” mailers that provide information about the outcome of bond measures.
No money has been spent, he said.
Whether mailers like KHSD’s violate the law — or the spirit of the law — is open to interpretation.
In an opinion published in January, Harris stated that “a school or community college district violates California constitutional and statutory prohibitions against using public funds to advocate passage of a bond measure by contracting with a person or entity for services related to a bond election campaign if the pre-election services may be fairly characterized as campaign activity.”
Sending out informational mailers at public expense the summer before a bond election isn't illegal, and occurs frequently as part of consulting firms' strategies to pass bonds, Kevin Dayton, an analyst with the think tank California Policy Institute, said.
Education Code Section 7054 states: “No school district or community college district funds, services, supplies, or equipment shall be used for the purpose of urging the support or defeat of any ballot measure…”
However, district general funds can be used to provide general, informational materials to citizens.
But there's a line distinguishing what is an informational mailer and what is bond campaign activity, which Harris and State Treasurer John Chiang have taken hard stances against districts engaging in with public money.
“The informational mailer you have from KHSD goes right to the edge but not over the line to explicitly tell people how to vote,” Dayton said.
But Richard Michael, a state bond watchdog, said it doesn't matter. The intent of any pre-election mailer is to sway voter favor, he said.
“Districts are sending out these mailers and saying it's informational and it’s not. It's designed to give them PR,” Michael said. “They want to get people to vote yes on this bond and you can tell by looking at the mailers, just by looking at them. This is not informational.”
For his part, Cole told The Californian last month, before the mailer came to light, that the district's contract with Providence had nothing to do with the bond.
“I want to make it really clear: so the contract that we had with Providence — Tracy Leach's group — was specific to helping us get information about programs and schools and those types of things out,” Cole said July 28. “It was not to advocate for a bond. I don't want to confuse that. We've done no bond advocation. I want to make sure that’s clear. It was to get information out about our school programs.”
In an Aug. 3 email obtained by The Californian, Leach calls it a “draft brochure for introducing the district’s upcoming proposal for repair and modernization.”
After the mailer came to light, Cole said the district had not yet distinguished the difference between advocating for a bond measure and providing informational material.
“We haven't reached the point where we can determine the differences and are still weighing them with our bond counsel, and that's why nothing has gone out. We want to make sure we're not doing anything that violates ed code,” Cole said. “We're trying to be very careful.”