Click Here to See Larger Image
By Christina Jenkins
Daily Bruin Contributor
The biggest general obligation bond in California history won a
victory in the Senate last week with an approval that will place
$25 billion before voters over the next four years.
The UC will receive $1.4 billion, allocated for the construction
of school facilities, if voters approve. The rest will be absorbed
by K-12 schools, and the community college and state college
systems.
If approved, the bond will be spent over a period of four
years.
Passed by the Senate Thursday in a vote of 27-11, the bill
includes a $13 billion bond measure for the November ballot and an
additional $12.3 billion in bonds for the March 2004 ballot.
Until now, the largest GO bond ““ one that is placed on the
ballot, rather than being put in place by the state government
““ proposed in California was for $6.7 billion in 1998. The
bond passed, but funding for that bond will run out this year.
The bill provides for a combination of GO bonds and lease
revenue bonds, which do not go into effect until signed by the
governor.
UCLA intends to spend the money it receives, if the bond is
approved, on seismic retrofitting, correcting disabled access, and
the installation of sprinkler systems, according to Sue Santon,
assistant vice chancellor of Campus Capital Programs.
State-funded projects will target construction needs in Kinsey
Hall, the Geology buildings, the Life Sciences building, Campbell
Hall, the Medical School, Clark Library, Boelter Hall, and the
Engineering 1 Building, Santon said.
The bond will fund construction for the next four years.
“While this is a large dollar amount, it reflects the
great need we have for facilities,” said Paul Mitchell, the
chief consultant for the assembly committee on higher
education.
The statewide need, he said, will reach $50 billion in ten
years.
Mitchell cites the combination of an increase in student demand
for higher education and an increase in the number of students as
an explanation for the bond’s large size.
If approved by the voters, the money will be spent statewide on
“new academic facilities to support academic growth, seismic
retrofitting, and the renewal of existing plant facilities,”
said Larry Aull, director of state capital programs and development
in the UC Office of the President.
However, Santon said UCLA is not expecting to receive state
funds for new facilities tied to enrollment growth.
Instead, she said, the campus is planning to accommodate growth
through intensification of use, reallocation, and selective
renovation of existing facilities.
For example, if UCLA needs to open a new dorm because of the
student population surge, Aull said these buildings are funded by
the revenue stream of the students and would not be covered by this
bond money.
Approximately 13 million from this bond is anticipated to fund
UC Merced ““ the tenth UC campus ““ in 2004, the year the
campus is expected to open, Aull said.