By Eliza Ridgeway

Casas-Frier

The Foothill-De Anza Community College District announced last week that it will put a $490.8 million bond measure before voters this June. If approved, district voters would see an average $117 increase on their annual property tax bills - for the next 30 years.

“It’s a big number because it’s a long-term plan,” said Foothill Trustee Laura Casas-Frier. “We want a guaranteed source that we can count on for 15 years. A half a billion sounds monumental, but the Palo Alto Unified School District renovation was almost half a billion and so is the El Camino Hospital renovation.”

The district worked with Morgan Stanley to calculate the measure’s financial projections, based on a 4 percent annual assessed-value (property tax) growth rate districtwide. The district predicts an annual cost of $24 per $100,000 of assessed value for area homeowners and places the districtwide average assessed value at $490,000. Residents who purchased their homes recently, incurring a higher assessed value, can expect to pay more.

Projects planned under this measure include renovations, updated technology and expansion. Highlights include a new building for physics and chemistry at Foothill and updates to the schools’ 50-year-old classrooms, including 80 “smart” classrooms.

“They’re designed for today’s teachers, who teach in a very different way from a chalkboard,” said Mike Brandy, district vice chancellor of business services. Audiovisual equipment, wireless connectivity and accommodations for laptops are included in the technology planning.

Twenty percent, or $98 million of the measure, would be allotted to technology, such as the updated classrooms and ongoing replacement and repairs for the district’s 5,000 computers.

Another $40 million would go toward the purchase and development of a third college facility, smaller than a full campus, in the Sunnyvale-Mountain View area. A preliminary plan envisions a research park partnering the Foothill-De Anza district, NASA and California State University at San Jose and Santa Cruz.

There is no college serving the technology field, said Casas-Frier. “We need to focus on math and science in order to address the economic needs of the future.”

Public funding for the district is far lower than the national average and that for the University of California and California State Universities. At $3,700 per student, Foothill students benefit from only a quarter of the funding available to UC students.

“Because we are chronically underfunded by the state, we have to take responsibility on a local level,” Casas-Frier said. “The investment of your tax dollars is very well spent. We are the number one transfer school for the UC and CSU systems.”

The board of trustees unanimously voted to approve the new measure only six years after Measure E, a $248 million bond measure, went into effect.

A statewide increase in construction costs and the discovery of an earthquake fault under the student center have hampered the full realization of Measure E’s plans, according to Brandy.

Voters approved Measure E in 1999 by a 72 percent majority, slightly more than the two-thirds required. The current bond proposal will need only 55 percent approval because of Proposition 39, passed in 2001, which lowers the approval threshold for certain bond measures. A poll commissioned by the district board found residents held the district in high esteem and responded positively to the potential projects.

Brandy said the trustees targeted the June 6 primary election only months away because it is expected to be an “uncluttered field,” where the bond measure can receive full attention. A public education campaign to advertise the measure is being planned, according Marie Fox Ellison, executive director of the Foothill-De Anza Foundation, the district’s fund-raising organization.