Live Updates: In early unofficial results, Modesto City Schools Measure L barely hangs on
Measure L, the Modesto City Schools district’s $198 million bond bid to update its high schools — the majority of which date back 50 to 100 years — was barely winning voter approval in early, unofficial results Tuesday night.
The bond measure needs 55% approval to win. In a results update issued at 11:47 p.m., it had 18,158 votes, or 55.05% of the total. Votes against the measure were 14,828, or 44.95%.
“We are cautiously optimistic, we have confidence we will prevail,” district Superintendent Sara Noguchi told The Bee earlier in the night by phone from the results-watching gathering at Fuzio Universal Bistro in downtown. “Putting the bond on the ballot was the right thing for Modesto City Schools and our high schools. Going into it, we knew it would be razor thin, and we did a lot of work” with the Modesto Teachers Association and other partners.
Noguchi added that she was pleased the city of Modesto’s Measure H, the 1% sales tax, was winning. She had hoped not to see one measure pass and the other fail, she said.
The district’s last bond measure for high schools was in 2001. Voters then approved Measure T, a $65 million bond to help build two high schools: Enochs, which opened in 2006, and Gregori, which opened in 2010.
But MCS has five older comprehensive high schools — Beyer, Davis, Downey, Johansen and Modesto — and Elliott Alternative Education Center.
Measure L will go toward high-priority needs identified by the district, including repairing leaking roofs and deteriorating plumbing, replacing outdated heating and cooling systems for energy efficiency and safe air quality, improving access for students with disabilities, and updating career training classrooms, labs and equipment to prepare students for the workforce.
The bond’s total cost over its 25-year life — including interest — is about $334 million.
The cost to property owners will be about $29 per $100,000 in assessed value per year. That’s based on the purchase price of a home, not its current market value.
The owner of a $300,000 home can expect to pay $87 a year, or $7.25 a month. The cost to the owner of a $500,000 home will be $145 a year, or $12.08 a month.
The first planned bond issuance is in May 2023, so property owners won’t see the increase until their 2023-24 property tax bills.
The bond project list, included in the Stanislaus County sample ballot, does not drill down to specific projects and their price tags. If Measure L is approved, the project list will be shaped much the same way it was for elementary schools, Associate Superintendent of Business Services Tim Zearley said: “We would go to each school community, including teachers, administration, parents, (and ask,) ‘What would you like to see?’”
Ultimately, specific projects go before the Board of Education for approval. And the Measure L full text says its passage “does not guarantee that all projects on the Bond Project List at all listed sites will be funded beyond the local revenues generated ... .”
The district has identified projects as being high-priority needs and has said each high school site will see improvements. Project areas include:
- Outdated and damaged facilities (replacement of portables, renovation of restrooms, leaky roofs, HVAC, plumbing, etc.)
- Classroom tech (updating classrooms and science labs, improving learning technology, performing arts theaters and more)
- Improving accessibility to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements
- P.E. and athletic facilities (stadiums, pools, all-weather tracks and other projects)
- Health and Safety (alarms, lighting, fencing, security cameras)
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 8:41 PM.
